Wood Buffalo Transit Business Plan

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Wood Buffalo Transit Business Plan
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Study Purpose

• Develop a Five-Year Service Plan
• Develop a 20-year Asset Management Plan

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Guiding Principles

• To meet reasonable community expectations, the
  study addressed
• Service coverage guidelines
• Minimum service levels
• Customer service
• Service reliability and efficiency
• Fiscal responsibility

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Peer Review
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Costs
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Service
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Demand Vs Service
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Revenue
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Transit System Assessment

• Review of the existing transit operations
• Applying industry standards to the design and
  performance of improved transit services

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Bus Stop Activities
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Schedule Adherence
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Stakeholder Consultations
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Unprecedented Public Input

• Transit operation surveys
• Transit customer surveys
• Business and employee survey
• RMWB Website surveys for transit customers,
  non-transit customers, and businesses community
• Transit focus group meetings
• July 18 Public Open House

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Transit Issues

• More service needed
• Longer hours
• More weekend service
• Service needs to be more reliable
• Improve bus connections
• Buses do not arrive on time
• It takes too long to get from A to B
• Routes are indirect
• The transit system is complicated
• Service must be more convenient and easier to
  understand
• Bus routes are stretched to the limit
• New developments need to be served
• Low speed limits in some areas

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Transit Issues

• Fleet is old (some buses 30 years)
• Improvements needed to bus stops
• Conflicts with oils sands buses
• Cost to provide service is high
• Bus fares are considered to be low
• More timely response to customer inquiries
• Improved route guides
• Lack of a quality downtown terminal
• Lack of rural public transit service

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Service Recommendations

• Complete route restructure
• Reduce of routes from 17 to 10
• Two-way service replaces one-way
• Introduce core Mainline Route, service to
  MacDonald Island and new subdivisions
• Expand service hours/ more weekend service
• Improved safety and security
• Better service to rural communities
• Increase and restructure bus fares
• Implement a new marketing strategy

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New Service Coverage
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Infrastructure Needs

• Modernize fleet
• Bus stop safety retrofit program
• New downtown bus terminal
• New transit garage facility will be needed
• Develop partnership with oil industry
• Adapt to changes through technology Transit
  reorganization
• Provide on-street transit supervision
• Establish a Transit Focus Group
• Address residential parking issues

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Specialized Transit

• Service is in good shape
• Fleet is healthy but maintenance facility needed
• Customer satisfaction is high
• Transfer of responsibility for specialized
  transit to Wood Buffalo Transit is a positive
  move
• Integrate with conventional transit
• Free use of conventional transit service by
  registered specialized transit customers and
  seniors
• Introduce a travel training program

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Financial Reality Check

• Public transit is expensive and cannot be all
  things to all people
• A new 40-foot bus cost over 400,000
• One bus,16 hours of service per day, 6-days a
  week costs 400,000/ year
• All changes cannot be undertaken overnight
• Regional financial resources are finite

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Realistic Approach Needed

• Incremental service improvements to build
  ridership
• Aging buses must be replaced over several years
• Use low cost forms of service delivery where
  warranted
• Work with school transportation boards
• High school students are the future
• Opportunity to save AND improve transit
  service for students by staggering start and end
  times

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Fare Strategies

• Reward frequent riders
• Free transfers within 90 minutes in any direction
  and on any route
• Negotiate U-pass with Keyano College
• Future fare increases
• Ticket/ smart card prices should approximate 80
  of the cost of the cash fare
• Monthly passes should be based on about 40 trips
  per month x the ticket fare
• Cash fares and smart card only

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Summary

• Wood Buffalo Transit Transit cannot be all
  things to all people
• Focus on key markets and serve them well
• Latent demand exists to grow ridership
• Services can be streamlined and expanded
• Increase liaison with oil industry
• Bus fares should increase to help support
  expanded service
• Our recommendations address
• What our customers are saying
• What non-customers are asking for
• Meeting transit needs in a fiscally responsible
  manner

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Next Steps

• Review input from public open house
• Finalize new routings and services for 2007 and
  beyond
• Develop short and long-term plans
• Ridership Growth Plan
• Asset Management Plan
• Draft Report for RMWB Council
• Continue to work with oil industry

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Thank You!
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Transportation Master Plan

• Work Complete to Date
• Traffic data collection
• Intersectional traffic counts
• Daily traffic counts
• Weekly traffic counts
• Origin-Destination survey
• Parking survey
• Parking utilization surveyed in CBD
• Traffic feature database
• Catalogued existing traffic signage within the CBD

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Transportation Master Plan

• Work In Progress
• Loop road alignment
• CBD parking strategies
• Traffic feature database summary
• Work to Start
• Connectivity to Highway 63
• Franklin Avenue Redesign
• Pedestrian Crossing Control review
• Park/Trail Linkages
• Franklin Avenue Future Signal Timing Phasing and
  Plans

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Thank You!
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Preliminary Service Concepts
Step 1
Step 2
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Preliminary Service Concepts
Step 3
Step 4