Here are OC Transpo’s ideas to compensate riders for poor service this year

City staff are outlining some of the possibilities of how transit riders could be compensated after months of poor service. CTV’s Leah Larocque reports.

OC Transpo staff say they’ve looked at several options for compensating riders for thousands of bus trip cancellations and disrupted service on O-Train Line 1 this year.

Transit riders dealt with significant delays to bus service caused by mechanical breakdowns and a lack of available buses and drivers in the first three months of the year, particularly in January, when as many as six per cent of daily trips had to be cancelled.

Then, in late January, an issue called spalling was discovered on some of the Alstom Citadis Spirit trains on O-Train Line 1. OC Transpo pulled all trains with axles that had more than 100,000 kilometres of mileage from service for inspections and axle replacements and reduced service to single-car trains. Full service has yet to be restored.

In February, city council approved a motion directing staff to explore ways to compensate riders for poor transit service.

In a report prepared for the May 14 transit committee meeting, Transit Services general manager Rick Leary said staff looked at two main ideas: long-term improvements to service and fare-related compensation.

“While fare-based options could provide retroactive relief for customers, the value of investing funding into infrastructure or other non-fare initiatives could improve service reliability and customer satisfaction in the future and in the longer term,” the report says.

Discounts and refunds

Two ideas for financial compensation directly to riders were explored.

The first was a retroactive refund for service between Jan. 22 and March 31. Staff said this would only be able to apply to customers who paid using a Presto card due to technical limitations.

“Customers who had paid their fare by Presto card during the defined time span would receive a credit back to their account. This approach would primarily benefit those customers who continued using transit during the disruption period, as they were most directly affected,” the report said.

It would cost $8.2 million to give all Presto card users a 50 per cent refund for January, February, and March, not including organizations that purchase passes in bulk.

Automatic refunds would not be available to customers who paid by cash, credit or debit card.

Temporarily cutting prices in the future could benefit more riders and potentially increase ridership, staff said. Cutting the price of a monthly pass in half would cost around $2.5 million per month. A 50 per cent discount for single-fare trips would cost around $3 million per month.

A monthly adult pass currently costs $138.50 per month, while a single-ride fare is $4.15 if paying cash or $4.10 via Presto, debit, or credit card payments.

Offering free fares for one three-day weekend would cost around $450,000.

Improving service

Non-fare ideas include purchasing more buses and making roadway changes such as bus bays or bulb-outs, bus lanes, queue-jump lanes, and priority signals for buses.

“If additional buses were ordered this year, they could be available by the end of 2028. The estimated full cost of a new diesel articulated bus, including post-production fit-up work required before it is placed in service, is $1.65 million,” the report says. “As well, staff will continue to explore the used bus market and if second-hand buses become available for purchase to supplement the current fleet, the cost per bus would be lower.”

OC Transpo is currently in the process of receiving hundreds of zero-emission buses, which are intended to replace aging diesel buses in the fleet.

Traffic changes vary in price from $20,000 to $100,000 per kilometre to convert existing lanes into bus-only lanes and up to $75 million per kilometre to construct a new transitway, staff said. Curbside changes could cost $100,000 to $200,000, assuming no drainage changes are required. It would cost between $25,000 and $75,000 per location to create transit priority signals at intersections.

Some of the ideas are already being studied or considered in some parts of the city. Staff say bus stop bulb-outs are currently being planned for locations along Richmond Road, Wellington Street and Somerset Street, and queue-jump lanes are being constructed on Baseline Road at Greenbank Road.

For the LRT, staff said funding could be allocated toward installing a heat tracing system along the overhead power lines on Line 1 between Lees and Hurdman stations to improve weather resilience. This would cost an estimated $2 million and could be ready by winter 2027.

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe says he would rather see funds invested to improve transit reliability than used towards refunds.   

“Rather than issue refunds that take money out of the transit budget, I believe we should invest as much as possible in measures that will lead to more and better bus and train service,” Sutcliffe said in a statement to CTV News Ottawa.

“Let’s increase reliability, let’s improve service, and let’s give more people a reason to use public transit. That’s what residents want and expect from OC Transpo, and that’s what I’m focused on.”

Coun. Shawn Menard, who was one of the councillors who moved the motion to have staff examine the issues, says he’s pleased to see the potential options that have been put forward.

“I’m happy to have a suite of options now that staff have come up with to compensate transit riders and improve service, and we’ll have to pick through which ones make sense, along with the chair and the committee,” he said.

“One important thing to point out here — a very important thing — is that the costs for this will come from the funds that were held back from RTG because of the poor service on the train, so that there’s no additional cost to residents in Ottawa as a result of some of these measures.”

Menard says there is a way to have multiple options that include compensation and improved service.

“I think that there’s ways to improve service, potentially get some bus only lanes on places like Carling and have some future compensation, whether that means lower fares or free fare service for some for some time in the future. I think we need to look at a package as multiple things.”

Bus rider Hannah Collins says her daily commute on Route 14 is constantly unpredictable.

“Sometimes it takes an hour because I’m just waiting 25, 30, 40 minutes just for the bus and the bus ride itself. Fifteen, 20 minutes, a regular amount of time. But sometimes it takes an hour and I’m getting three kilometers,” she said.

Collins likes the idea of compensation but says it shouldn’t come at the cost of improving service.

“I would like to get money, sure. But at the end of the day, what I want is public transit that works, and public transit that works for everyone in the city.”

The $47 million question

While staff presented a variety of options, they also said the financial state of OC Transpo needs to be considered.

“The approved 2026 budget includes supplementary funding from senior levels of government of $47 million which has not yet been secured,” the report says.

OC Transpo has offered free service before. Customers were given free service in December 2021 following the disruption caused by the O-Train Line 1 shutdown for 54 days. The month of no-charge transit cost $7.2 million, which was covered by funding withheld from Rideau Transit Group.

A free weekend of service in May 2025, following the launch of the “New Ways to Bus” changes, cost approximately $285,000 for two days of service.

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