Metrobus Transit Study.pdf - City of St. John's

St. John’s Transportation Commission (Metrobus) 2011
Market Assessment and Strategic Directions Study – Executive Summary
of transit use, and areas that were seen to need improvement include service frequency, travel time
and the need to transfer, and improvements in off-peak service hours (evenings and weekends).
Major market opportunities exist within and adjacent to the Metrobus service area. One of the big
drives will be to better capture a larger share of the post-secondary market through improvements in
overall service levels to Memorial University and the College of the North Atlantic (CNA). An
effectively way to drive demand and better utilize these types of service improvements is through
the implementation of a Universal Transit Pass (U-Pass) for post-secondary students. The pass
program is a revenue neutral initiative that would need to be ratified by the student union, but would
lead to significant ridership growth and dramatically change the level of transit service that could be
provided, benefiting all members of the community. Care must be taken in negotiating the financial
arrangements for such a program, but based on experience in comparable settings many positive
effects could result.
An expansion to region-wide transit service delivery to address the population growth outside the
current service area is another market opportunity and provincial facilitation is needed to help the
local municipalities achieve regional cooperation. Metrobus provides the ideal service delivery
platform for regional transit in the greater St. John’s area.
The aging of the population and the concentration of seniors within the City of St. John’s is a third
market consideration. The current pass fare for seniors is very low and not always reflective of the
economic profile of this group. Low fare for seniors will impact the ability of Metrobus to fund
future operations as the population continues to age and more seniors use the service. Adjusting the
senior’s pass rate to one that is more in line with income rather than age would help offset the
reduction in revenues that will result under the present system. Affordability related issues should
continue to be dealt with via the social service department.
Moving to a ‘family of services’ approach which more effectively addresses the travel needs of both
seniors and persons with disabilities, is recommended as a cost effective strategy for these markets.
A partnership between Metrobus, the Seniors Resource Centre and other groups focused on seniors
should be pursued to enable travel training for seniors on conventional services and to develop
targeted approaches such as Community Bus.
A partnership approach is also proposed for providing custom designed transit services for
employees in industrial parks and innovative strategies such as Zone bus and Transcab are suggested
to more productively serve periods of low demand (e.g. Sundays) and areas remote from the main
corridors and with relatively low demand.
The existing transit terminals are highlighted as targets for improved design that will increase
passenger convenience, operational efficiency and safety. Route interlining and transit priority
measures at these locations would significantly benefit the system and its users by reducing physical
transfers, improving travel time and promoting ridership growth. Extended time transfers should
also be considered to benefit users and local businesses while increasing ridership and reducing
disputes between staff and users.
Finally, one of the core recommendations in this plan is the need for increased partnerships and
communication between city and Metrobus staff to help meet the common goals of the two
organizations, increase the transit mode share within the greater St. John’s area, improve the
effectiveness of service delivery, and promote increased transit ridership. Transit cannot reach both
ridership and financial performance targets alone. It must operate within a structure that recognizes
the importance of land use, parking, roads, traffic and municipal investment on the ability to provide
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