OC Transpo says Line 1 capacity sufficient to meet demand amid spalling issue, bus service improving

Transit riders descend the stairs at Tunney's Pasture station to the O-Train platform. Jan. 22, 2026. (Tyler Fleming/CTV News Ottawa)

OC Transpo says it has enough trains available on O-Train Line 1 to meet customer demand, albeit with some cramped quarters on single-vehicle trips, despite the recent spalling issue that was discovered this week.

On Friday, trip frequency during peak travel hours was increased on Line 1 to every three to four minutes, instead of every five minutes, to help move more customers at times when only a single car is available. There are 18 light rail vehicles available as of Friday to move passengers.

Forty-one vehicles are currently out of service and are being inspected and having their cartridge bearing assemblies replaced. OC Transpo estimates that, by Monday, there will be 20 train cars available for riders.

• RELATED: OC Transpo reducing O-Train Line 1 service after identifying new issue with trains

Weekend service on Line 1 will not change, with trains coming every 10 minutes during normal operating hours, OC Transpo said.

Interim general manager of Transit Services Troy Charter said the repair process for the trains is complex and takes a significant amount of time.

“We’ve been advised by our maintainer that they can replace two axles per day, and on each train there’s five bogies that have two axles, so on each train, there’s 10 axles that would be required to be looked at,” he said. “Not every axle has the same mileage and not every axle will exceed 100,000 kilometres, so you’ll have some trains in which you need to look at one axle, some you’d have to look at two or three, so we’re asking them to prioritize the ones that only require one axle replacement.”

• Sign up now for daily CTV News Ottawa newsletters

The 100,000 km mileage threshold was set to determine which trains must be inspected prior to being returned to service.

Charter says Rideau Transit Group (RTG) has advised that they plan to hire an outside consultant to provide additional expertise on bearings and monitoring techniques. Additionally, RTG is engaging its subcontractor, Alstom’s bearing experts in France as part of their analysis. Alstom manufactured the Citadis Spirit trains that are used on Line 1.

Acting director of Transit Service Deliver and Rail Operations Joel Lemieux said R1 bus service will not be required to supplement Line 1, because the current number of trains can accommodate the ridership. He added that this means buses would not need to be pulled from regular service to fill the R1 role.

Bus service seeing improvement

Charter said the week of Jan. 11 to 17 saw an overall improvement in the number of buses available for service and a decrease in cancelled trips compared to the week prior.

“While this is a positive improvement, work continues to ensure we can consistently deliver the service customers expect,” he said.

According to the most recent data provided by OC Transpo, average bus service delivery that week was 95.1 per cent, up from 94.1 per cent the week prior. That figure rises to 96.1 per cent if the period of Jan. 14 to 16 is excluded, due to inclement weather. Ottawa saw 21 cm of snow on Jan. 15 and another 2.4 cm on the 16^th.

There were fewer than 100 cancelled trips across the bus network on Jan. 11, according to OC Transpo, but Jan. 12 saw around 500. There were between 300 and 400 cancelled trips on the 13^th and 14^th, followed by approximately 600 on the 15^th during the snowfall. Jan. 16 saw just under 600 cancelled trips, while the 17^th saw fewer than 100.

Between Jan. 4 and Jan. 17, OC Transpo says there were 2,330 trips that were not delivered, out of 45,342 trips scheduled.

Charter said the city had, on average, 498 buses available every weekday. Fleet availability is usually 520 buses per day, but that target has been temporarily reduced to 500 until fleet availability improves.

In the meantime, Charter said every effort is being made to improve bus service.

“Our priority remains on increasing our fleet health and working to have the required number of buses available for service,” he said. “Our frontline maintenance team is fully engaged and working overtime to keep the buses on the roads, serving our customers. I want to thank them for their dedication. We are also working with outside vendors to complete some of the maintenance work required on the buses.”

• The information you need to know, sent directly to you: Download the CTV News App

He specified that one OC Transpo bus has been sent to a vendor outside Ottawa to test their ability to repair it.

“We’re exploring everything. We are sending buses to other vendors. We’re at the early stages of that. We’ve only sent one bus so far. We want to see what their performance is and, should they produce good results, we’ll look at sending more buses on a regular basis,” he said.

The city is also looking to acquire additional used buses to bolster the fleet while waiting for the delayed delivery of zero-emission buses. Currently, there are 41 electric buses available for service.

“At this point, we’ve cast the net far and wide… we’re across North America, both in Canada and the United States in terms of where we’re looking,” he said. “We want to see what the feasibility is... what we anticipate the reliability of those buses would be, how many years of life they have left, what we need to do in terms of retrofits, if any, to outfit them with our technical requirements for our fleet here.”