Saint John Transit Audit Released

A long-awaited operational audit into Saint John Transit by Stantec has been released to the public.

The 200-page report outlines ways for the transit service to reduce costs and ensure long-term sustainability.

It includes a number of short-term recommendations which Stantec said could save Saint John Transit $850,000 in 2021.

Trish Ellsworth, chair of the transit commission, said because council reduced the transit subsidy by $850,000 this year, they have already achieved that goal.

“Primarily through route reductions and changes through 2020 that we took as a result of COVID, continuing those same restrictions and reductions through 2021 and continuing that stability that COVID introduced in 2020 has helped us achieve that,” Ellsworth said.

Much of the cost savings identified in the report were the result of proposed changes to fixed-route service. Stantec said the proposed changes would save an estimated $1.18 million.

Other recommendations, such as adding a 0.5 full-time equivalent to the organization and making Handi-Bus fares equal to conventional transit fares, reduce the savings to $960,000.

Ellsworth said there are no immediate changes planned to routes, noting they still need to study the recommendations proposed by Stantec.

“There are some route recommendations in there that, on the surface, don’t make a lot of sense right away and might need a little bit of local knowledge tweaking to be able to make them viable,” she said.

“The report is really the starting point. It is a recommendation that we would look at those routes and the recommendations as a starting point and then make relevant decisions based on what we know about our city and what we know about our passengers and our riders.”

Ellsworth said one of the recommendations they are most interested in is introducing technology to gather more timely and informative data.

“I think that’s one of the biggest challenges that we have as an organization is our limited access to timely and real-time data,” she said.

The transit commission, with support from the city, is in the process of creating a plan to implement short, medium and long-term goals and strategies found in the report.

Ellsworth said with Saint John Transit being such a “lean organization,” they are looking to get some external help from a project management point of view.

Community engagement will “continue to be a priority” as the plan is developed and key strategies are implemented, according to the city.