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Okotoks transit recognized with award of excellence

The award is based on sustainability, innovation, suitability and transferability
Okotoks Transit 0878
The Town of Okotoks received the Minister's Award for Municipal Excellence for its on-demand transit system. (BRENT CALVER/Western Wheel)

Okotoks transit received recognition for its innovation.

The Town was a recipient of the Minister’s Award for Municipal Excellence for its on-demand transit service. It won in the Service Delivery Innovation category.

David Gardner, transit specialist for the Town, said the criteria centred around how well the program improved or reduced the cost of service delivery, based on its sustainability, relevance and transferability.

Under sustainability, he said the buses used are eco-friendly.

“The vehicles we purchased are hybrid vehicles, and according to manufacturer specifications, they achieve up to 26 per cent savings on fuel,” said Gardner.

Relevance was based on how suited the service was for the size of the town and its population, as well as available resources.

Gardner said it had been difficult to gauge how popular the on-demand transit would be when it launched, because the town had never run transit before. Demand was unknown, so the Town started small, he said.

“The size of our project was fairly small and, at initial start-up, suited to a smaller town,” he said.

He said the on-demand service provided an option to address challenges that would have risen with fixed route, given the layout of the town with no grid.

“It allows us to have a lot more flexibility with vehicles and move around into the different communities,” said Gardner.

Fixed route also would have been more costly, requiring more vehicles at the onset and the installation of stops around town, he said.

Those elements deemed the on-demand service right-sized for the town according to the Province, he said.

The transferability of the project refers to whether it could be used in other towns, cities or provinces across Canada. Its popularity among other municipalities nation-wide became clear early on, said Gardner.

“I had a lot of conversations with a lot of municipalities who were interested in looking at how they could roll out transit in some of their smaller towns, and also some bigger towns,” he said.

Overall, he said the award is reflective of the hard work of the Town and the recognition is nice, but he said there are even better ways to assess its success.

“The real satisfaction is in hearing from users in the town,” said Gardner. “They’re the real award. If people are happy and they’re enjoying the service, that’s the real value here.”

Interest in the service has been higher than expected, with a total of 27,401 passenger trips in 2020, it’s first year. To-date in 2021, nearly 26,000 trips have been logged, with 3,723 of those in August alone.

“We’re on target to reach close to 40,000 passenger rides this year,” said Gardner.

He said that is particularly impressive because the transit system has been in and out of restrictions and continues to operate with reduced capacity due to COVID.

Demand for the service is high, and while that’s indicative of its success he said it’s also a problem.

“I do hear from time to time people can’t get rides, and we are doing everything we can to try to improve efficiency,” said Gardner.

That included a fifth vehicle coming online by the end of 2021 or beginning of 2022, and analyzing data from the Okotoks Transit app to study cancelled rides and peak demand times.

There is a possibility to change the trip window, meaning more people could ride-share during a trip and make more bookings available at a time, but it could also mean users are on the bus for a bit longer, he said.

“We would have less failed rides, so the overall result is more people can use the service, but the individual result is there could be a lowering of service quality in terms of time,” said Gardner.

If that approach is taken, he said it will be done slowly and in marginal increments to minimize potential impacts.

What comes next for Okotoks Transit will likely be something brought before the new council, he said.

“I’d love to say everything is awesome and wonderful, and it is, and we’re breaking all the records, we’re out-performing everything we could have achieved, but I’m concerned that we may have to look at what’s next for transit, given the amount of support for public transit in Okotoks,” said Gardner.

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