Saint John Transit ridership and revenue is experiencing a slump and the new CEO believes a ‘severe’ lack of data is the cause.
Ian MacKinnon was hired back in February of this year to helm both transit and parking and he says they’ve made changes to service eight times since 2009 and those have been both increases and decreases in service.
“Keep in mind steadily ridership and revenue has trailed off, so can you imagine a business where revenue has trailed off, but we’ve increased service. That’s what’s happened and I think that’s because of lack of data.”
MacKinnon makes a comparison between the bus system in Saint John and the Saint John Airport to illustrate his point.
“Can you imagine being responsible for the flights into and out of the city airport, only knowing how many flights came and left in a month,” says MacKinnon, delivering a presentation at the latest meeting of Common Council. “Knowing where the flights went, Halifax, Toronto for example but not knowing how many people were on the flights. That’s transit today.”
One area of focus for improving Saint John Transit this year is putting in place a passenger count system which is currently and also collecting data for route optimization — cutting routes that aren’t used and building out new routes.
“There’s huge areas of opportunity in data and data collection on the service utilization, how the service is being used,” says MacKinnon. “I would even think at some point in the future we could get to a point where we have open data, we can share it, we can share it with the public.”
Bus fares have recently been increased in Saint John and it’s said that it’s common with every 10-percent increase in fares you’ll see a 3-percent reduction in ridership. This is also not a problem unique to this area, as ridership and revenue has declined right across Canada. Revenues and expenses are under budget but that’s not enough to avoid a shortfall.
Enterprise Saint John, the economic development agency for Saint John, Rothesay, Quispasmsis, Grand Bay-Westfield and St. Martins, has come out in support of Saint John Transit’s focus on data.
“This is exactly what our strategy to make Saint John the most connected community in Canada is all about,” says Enterprise Saint John CEO Steve Carson. “Through the collection and processing of data, government and business will gain new insights that they can leverage to increase revenue and efficiencies.”
Federal funding for transit has been announced with the city’s share of this funding in the order of $3.7-million however the city has to match that. Enterprise Saint John says that with those funds, electronic fare boxes could be installed to collect vital information on ridership volume on its bus routes.
