OC Transpo sees ridership increase in 2024, buying 40 new diesel buses

An OC Transpo light rail train is seen heading towards downtown Ottawa on January 21, 2020. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld)

OC Transpo transported nearly 68 million passengers in 2024, as ridership increased over 2023.

A report for the Transit Committee shows OC Transpo saw 67.9 million passenger trips on buses and the O-Train last year, up from 64.2 million trips in 2023 and 50.3 million trips in 2022.

September was the highest ridership month, with 7 million trips, followed by 6.7 million trips in both October and November.

There were 5.6 million passenger trips in December, down three per cent from December 2023. Staff say that was the first decline in year-over-year ridership in an individual month since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

OC Transpo saw a boost in ridership, as federal government workers returned to the office at least three days a week, starting in September.

The report shows OC Transpo’s on-time performance was lower than the target for last year. Service on frequent routes was on time 82 per cent of the time, while less frequent routes were on time at 74 per cent of the time. Staff say nine per cent of trips arrived more than one minute early on less frequent routes.

On the O-Train, the 12-month average for service delivery was 98.9 per cent of scheduled trips in 2024, while the average service delivery of 98.5 per cent of trips in January 2025.

Bus cancellations

In January, OC Transpo says it delivered 98 per cent of scheduled bus trips. Of the two per cent of trips cancelled, 0.3 per cent were due to mechanical breakdowns, 0.4 per cent were due to a lack of buses and 0.6 per cent of trips were cancelled due to bus operator availability.

Last fall, OC Transpo was forced to cancel dozens of bus trips a day due to bus maintenance issues.

The trips with the most cancelled trips in January are:

• Route B2: 320 trips cancelled
• Route 11: 265 trips cancelled
• Route 6: 251 trips cancelled

The Transit Committee was told “reliability is going down” on its aging bus fleet.

“Many are aging. As the buses continue to age, we see a notable increase in defects and major structural work identified during our preventative maintenance inspections,” Rami El Feghali, OC Transpo’s director of transit bus operations, told councillors.

“This added workload drastically impacts our ability to provide the required number of buses.”

The committee was told the aging fleet is requiring “time-consuming repair work” and increasing hours of labour for “preventative maintenance inspections.”

El Feghali says OC Transpo is increasing available labour hours by pivoting resources to service existing diesel fleets and incoming electric buses, and implementing a “predictive maintenance program” to incorporate lessons learned.

“The ongoing work is necessary to meeting our bus availability each day, however, these are still mitigations to the problem and the overall solution is replacing these aging buses with the upcoming deliveries of the electric ones.”

Ottawa now has 11 e-buses in the fleet, with eight on the road.

Buying new buses

OC Transpo is looking to buy 40 new diesel buses as it struggles to keep its aging fleet on the roads and deals with delays for the new electric buses. The city cancelled plans to purchase 60-foot electric buses last year due to delays.

The Transit Commission directed staff to look for used diesel articulated buses to purchase while OC Transpo waits for the arrival of electric buses.

Staff say no Canadian agencies have used 60-foot buses available to meet OC Transpo’s criteria and the service is now looking to international transit agencies.

“We have exhausted our search for used buses for sale in Canada that meet our criteria,” El Feghali said, noting OC Transpo was looking to buy up to 50 diesel buses. “Even when expanding the search for 40-foot buses, as most transit agencies across the country are facing similar challenges.”

“We cannot take a risk that we will find enough used diesel buses that will meet our needs.”

OC Transpo is using the Metrolinx Joint Procurement Initiative and working with New Flyer Industries to buy 40 or more 60-foot diesel articulated buses. The buses will be delivered at the end of 2026 or start of 2027.

OC Transpo had planned to buy 450 electric buses, at a cost of $1 billion. Seventy-four buses were scheduled to arrive last year, but only four e-buses have arrived in Ottawa and 47 buses will be arriving until the start of 2026.

Ottawa’s target is to have 350 zero-emission buses on the roads by 2027.