Saskatchewan Abilities Council will coordinate Swift Current’s public transit system

Swift Current City Council is tasking the Swift Current branch of the Saskatchewan Abilities Council to co-ordinate both the Paratransit and Public Transit services in Swift Current.

The local Abilities Council has been contracted to operate Swift Current's Paratransit System since 2006, with City Council now looking to the Abilities Council to operate the City's Public Transit services.

A two-year contract with the Abilities Council was approved at the January 5 City Council meeting, with the Abilities Council receiving $286,000 in 2015 to operate both the Paratransit and Public transit system. The Public Transit portion of the agreement begins effective April 1, with the current public transit contract in effect until March 31.

Consolidating operations under one provider is anticipated to result in greater efficiencies. The move is also anticipated to be a benefit as the City transitions from the current Telebus system into a bus service with regular routes.

"We are moving towards the scheduled service with bus routes versus the on demand service that we have right now. It's a little preliminary just yet to provide a lot of details, but our hope is we're going to improve public transit greatly within Swift Current," Mitch Minken, General Manager of Infrastructure and Operations for the City of Swift Current explained after the January 5 meeting.

"The Abilities Council has really done a great job of running the Para Transit side, and we've got total confidence in them moving over into the regular transit side. And the efficiencies that'll be gained by having those two systems integrated is going to be something that'll help us a lot in terms of how we move drivers back and forth, and how we move users back and forth between the two systems. We're anticipating gaining some efficiencies."

The City originally conducted a review of their transit system in 2011 as part of the City's Transportation Master Plan. Over the past few years they have begun exploring how to best make changes towards improving the existing public transit service.

"It's just been a slow process making our way through all of the details of getting this system up and running. It has taken a little longer than we had originally estimated, but we want to try and make sure we're doing the right things and do a good job of deploying this rather than rush our way through and then having it not go well. We want to make sure that we're addressing all the needs of our users."