Ridership slide impacts revenue, but OC Transpo manages a Q1 surplus

Transit ridership dropped over the first three months of 2017, leaving management wondering why its projections were off.

OC Transpo undershot its expected revenue by $3.9 million between January and March. The number of people taking transit played a role.

Pat Scrimgeour, director of transit customer systems and planning, said there’s no obvious reason why the ridership numbers dipped at the start of the year.

“Ridership was down compared to last year, but is it because of the weather that we had? Is it because of particular days?” Scrimgeour said in an interview Wednesday.

“We carry so many people a day that a couple of days can make a difference over a specific period of time.”

Scrimgeour said transit ridership is often the most updated statistic compared to other economic indicators, so it might take some time to determine what caused the ridership to decline over those three months.

It was just last September that Transpo was finally feeling good again about its ridership level. It looked like the downward trend was over after a period of job reductions in the federal public service and public uncertainty about LRT-related bus detours.

Scrimgeour pointed to some themes that can throw off ridership projections: more people working from home, working on compressed work schedules or shopping online rather than going to stores.

The amount of travel in general has been going down, he said.

Scrimgeour said Transpo will have ridership stability next year when the Confederation Line LRT opens and there will be a transit system that’s “quicker, better and faster.”

The revenue shortfall is also chalked up to how riders are choosing to pay for their trips. It’s been an ongoing conundrum for Transpo as the agency tries to predict how people will use the e-purse on their Presto cards versus buying monthly passes.

Coun. Stephen Blais, chair of the transit commission, said Transpo has been working to make public transit more affordable and draw more people to take buses and Trillium Line trains.

Transpo recently created the EquiPass for low-income riders, he noted.

“Certainly we want to ensure the ridership remains stable, if not increase,” Blais said.

The good news is Transpo managed to cut back its operational expenses by more than $5 million, leaving the department in a surplus position for the first quarter of the year.

Fuel, facility and compensation costs came in lower than expected.

Transpo will be eager to learn whether the ridership level has stayed the same in the second quarter, which is between April and June.

Scrimgeour said he hasn’t seen the April ridership statistics yet.

It turns out springtime hockey doesn’t help fill Transpo’s coffers, although every bit of money counts.

There’s simply not a strong correlation between Transpo’s ridership revenue and this year’s big playoff run by the Ottawa Senators.

Scrimgeour said only a small portion of people who take Transpo to the Canadian Tire Centre are riders paying fares per trip. Most customers already have monthly passes.

The transit commission will receive the financial report during a meeting next Wednesday.