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Recruiting more drivers, electrifying the bus fleet and getting workers to industrial parks are all high on the priority list for London’s transit agency this year.
An London Transit bus stops at Queens Avenue and Richmond Street on Monday. The London Transit Commission will be asked to sign off on its 2022 roadmap on Wednesday. (Derek Ruttan/The London Free Press)
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Recruiting more drivers, electrifying the bus fleet and getting workers to industrial parks are all high on the priority list for London’s transit agency this year.
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The London Transit Commission (LTC) will be asked to sign off on the 2022 roadmap highlighting its key targets at its monthly meeting on Wednesday. Among the highlights:
Serving Innovation Park
The goal is to have some kind of “alternative” public transit service – likely small vans or other vehicles – to get riders to Innovation Park, an industrial zone in London’s southeast, by year’s end.
Service to industrial areas has long been a pain point in London, as jobs in those areas go unfilled because of the lack of transportation options. There isn’t enough demand to fill city buses on a new route, but there is a need to provide public transit to serve workers in those zones. It’s expected to be a model for other areas of the city that aren’t yet on bus routes.
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“ As we’ve seen over the last two years, COVID-19 can have an impact on the best laid plans,” LTC general manager Kelly Paleczny said.
The transit agency is putting out a call for proposals, one from companies that can deliver the software, such an application riders can use to call or sign up for an “on-demand” trip. The second is to actually provide the service. “I n all likelihood we’ll need a service provider with a smaller vehicle. We certainly don’t need a 40-foot bus,” Paleczny said.
Electrifying the fleet
There won’t be any electric buses on the road this year, but there’s lots of work to be done to reach London’s goal of ditching diesel and going green with its public transit fleet.
The top goals are building up a staff team that can manage the rollout of electric buses in London once that equipment arrives, and participating in a collective request for proposals through an industry group. That’s the approach London is using to get the best deal on its first eight to 10 electric buses and chargers.
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City council approved $25.9 million in capital funding to go electric, including more than $14 million earmarked this year, and another $11.8 million in 2023, though city hall hopes to get at least half of that cash from a new federal fund for “zero emission transit.”
Recruiting drivers
Tackling a shortage of drivers remains a top priority this year, as London Transit fills training classes, each with six drivers, every month. The most recent group is on track to graduate later this month.
LTC staff predict the 436 drivers needed to operate existing routes and roll out delayed 2021 service improvements (increasing frequency on a number of routes that only ran once per hour) will be available after the newest trainees graduate at the end of April.
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There were additional retirements at the end of 2021, but many of those drivers stayed on for part-time work through LTC’s “wind-down” program, Paleczny said.
Two routes that primarily serve Western University students – cut in December as a result of driver illness and other pressures on the workforce – are expected to be reinstated when in-person classes resume in January and February, Paleczny said.
Navigating the pandemic
The pandemic continues to impact LTC’s workforce, ridership and bottom line, making it a focus of the 2022 plan. In December, as the Omicron variant spread rapidly, ridership on London Transit buses dipped back down to less than half of what’s typical for that time of year.
Short- and long-term disability claims are also up, as London Transit workers deal with COVID-19 infections, or, in some cases, the delay of surgeries or rehabilitation required to return to work, as a result of the pandemic’s health-care crunch.
London Transit also expects to need more bailout cash from provincial and federal governments to stay in the black this year with COVID-19 still hitting the bottom line. Even the 2022 workplan is “a best case scenario” and expected to be altered throughout the year depending on how the pandemic unfolds.
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