OC Transpo bus routes serving downtown Ottawa see most cancelled trips

Bill Carroll from The Morning Rush shares his thoughts on OC Transpo saying some cars will have to be taken out of service immediately.

Several bus routes serving downtown Ottawa are among the least reliable, according to recent data from OC Transpo, had the most cancelled trips this month.

OC Transpo management says bus service has not been meeting standards, with hundreds of buses failing to show up on time for riders across the city.

Among the most impacted are busy routes such as the 6 and 7, which serve downtown Ottawa, the 98, a critical link between Line 1 to the south end, and the 12 and 14, which connect Ottawa’s east end to downtown.

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A Jan. 9 memo from interim general manager of Transit Services Troy Charter acknowledged the failure, saying approximately six per cent of trips across the system were being cancelled, blaming the issue in part of a lack of mechanics to service the aging bus fleet.

On Jan. 5 alone, as many as 800 bus trips were cancelled, OC Transpo said.

Data from OC Transpo for the week of Jan. 4 to 10 listed the most cancelled routes, starting with Route 6, which saw 118 cancellations out of 1,041 planned trips that week, meaning about 11 per cent of scheduled trips were not delivered.

“The routes that carry the most people run most frequently and have the highest number of scheduled trips, so when there’s a system-wide issue, they will also show the highest number of trips not delivered,” OC Transpo said in a statement.

The most cancelled routes the week of Jan. 4 – 10 inclusive are as follows:

#1: Route 6 – 118 cancellations out of 1,041 planned trips (11.3 per cent cancelled)

#2: Route 7 – 108 cancellations out of 891 planned trips (12.1 per cent cancelled)

#3: Route 98 – 106 cancellations out of 832 planned trips (12.7 per cent cancelled)

#4: Route 12 – 97 cancellations out of 1,015 planned trips (9.6 per cent cancelled)

#5: Route 5 – 95 cancellations out of 794 planned trips (12 per cent cancelled)

#6: Route 11 – 88 cancellations out of 777 planned trips (11.3 per cent cancelled)

#7: Route 44 – 82 cancellations out of 797 planned trips (10.3 per cent cancelled)

#8: Route 41 – 81 cancellations out of 810 planned trips (10 per cent cancelled)

#9: Route 14 – 79 cancellations out of 743 planned trips (10.6 per cent cancelled)

On Wednesday, OC Transpo also announced impacts to O-Train Line 1, with dozens of trains taken out of service for maintenance after a new issue with the vehicles was discovered.

Capital Ward Coun. Shawn Menard, whose ward is served by several of the most-cancelled bus routes, most notably the 6 and the 7, said earlier this week that many residents are frustrated and called on OC Transpo to treat the issue as an emergency.

“This needs to be treated like an emergency watermain repair. It is a critical service that can not be allowed to flounder in this way,” he said on X.

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On Wednesday, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said the issues affecting OC Transpo are largely logistical.

“We purchased 300 electric buses. They’re arriving in Ottawa week by week, month by month. We don’t have all of them yet,” he told CTV News Ottawa following his ‘State of the City’ address. “It’s not an issue of money. It’s not an issue of investment. It’s a logistical issue around receiving the buses. We need to hire more mechanics and there’s a plan to do that, as well.”

The city has procured some used buses from other municipalities as a stop-gap measure and is currently waiting on more electric buses to add to the fleet. The City of Ottawa said last week 36 buses were on the roads. The city’s target is to have 350 by 2027.