Running late, drawing crowds: What new data reveals about Fredericton's bus routes

Fredericton Transit buses stuck to their posted schedule only about half the time for the month of April, according to data gathered from newly installed technology.

The city's buses arrived late about a thirdof the time and weretoo early 12.4 per cent of the time, which is where the real issue lies, according to Fredericton's transit manager.

"In transit, it's always OK to be late. You just can't be early," said Charlene Sharpe, providing an update to councillors during the city's mobility committee meeting on Thursday.

"We have 12.44 per cent that we have to work on. We have to investigate what's causing it." Sharpedid not indicate there was any information on why city buses raneither early or late almost half the time in April.

CBC News asked the City of Fredericton to clarify that, but did not receive a response before deadline.

Sharpe gave councillorsa look at new data pertaining to the operation of Fredericton Transit buses, includingthe number of passengers who travelled oneach route in April, as well as where passengers got on and off the bus most frequently, and how oftenbuses were on-time when arriving at each designated stop.

The data comes from new devices installed on buses in the past three months, which include GPS trackers and automaticpassenger counters.

They'repart of a strategy to review the performance of Fredericton Transitand explore improvements, which couldinclude the introduction of Sunday service.

Transit users have for years bemoaned the fact that buses don't run on Sundays, forcing many to take a taxi to get to and from work, a more expensive option.

Sharpe, who took on the role about a year ago, suggestedSunday service will be coming in the future, but saidthe technology needed to come first in order to ensure big changes were informed by the best data.

Strong demand on Saturdays

Sharpe also showed how ridership compared between weekdays and Saturdaysand suggested that demand for taking the bus was even higher on Saturdays for certain routes.

For the Carlisle 10N, Prospect 11S, Brookside 12N and Prospect 13S, Saturdays on averagesaw more passengers than during the week.

All four of those routes either end or start at the Regent Mall, with stops on the way up and down the hill from the transit hub at King's Place Mall.

Regent Malland other businesses in the uptownare open on Saturdays and Sundays,howeverthe data didn'taccount for the reasons people tookthe bus and what their final destinations were.

More data will be needed

Following her presentation, Sharpe took questions from councillors, including Deputy Mayor Greg Ericson.

He noted the data presented did notinclude information about starting and ending points for each passenger's journey.

In response, Sharpe said Fredericton Transit does need that dataand plans to get it through a public consultation process that looks into where people are going, their reasons for using the bus and why some people aren't using transit.

"So we have to work and figure out where we need to provide the service,and to get people using the serviceand find out why they're not using it," Sharpe said.

Coun.Bruce Grandy, chair of the mobility committee, said the data Sharpe is collecting will go into a plan she's expected to present next year "on where we need to go with transit and the changes we need to make."