Boost to off-peak transit service promised by September

A promised increase to off-peak service in Edmonton's transit system is slated to roll out by this September across nine different routes.

As outlined in the 2023-2026 budget, Edmonton Transit Service (ETS) is adding 500 hours per week of off-peak service this year. The change will be in place by this fall, branch manager Carrie Hotton-MacDonald told Taproot.

"At the very latest, it'll be in the September service change that we implement," she said. "It's just kind of dependent on hiring the operators in order to deliver those service hours."

The routes and times receiving service boosts are as follows:

• Route 500: weekday midday;
• Route 110: midday;
• Route 516: weekend morning/evening;
• Route 56: early evenings on weekends;
• Route 51: weekday midday, early Sunday, and late Saturday and Sunday;
• Route 54: Saturday and Sunday mornings and late service extended to West Edmonton Mall;
• Route 114: late evenings and weekend mornings;
• Route 901: early morning, midday, and Sunday evenings;
• Route 31: Terwillegar Drive, midday express service.

This is the first time in 10 years that ETS has boosted off-peak service hours. It follows both the system's bus network redesign and equity analysis report.

"I think it is going to make a huge difference," Hotton-MacDonald said. "It's small but mighty. It's not a dramatic number, but I think we're going to be able to show people the impact it (has), and I'm just really excited for that."

Part of the reason for the boost is a "smoothing" in demand for transit service across hours, Hotton-MacDonald said. While Edmonton has in the past primarily focused on the delivery of peak (a.k.a. rush hour) service, rider habits have changed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the bus network redesign.

"We are seeing more interest in demand from people in the off-peak … as opposed to having dramatic differences between peak and off-peak," she said.

Broadly, an increase to off-peak service helps address equity, usability, and safety.

"What we saw after the (equity) analysis is on the north side of the city — particularly north-central, northeast — is that there are some communities that have multiple equity-seeking groups in them," she said, adding that ETS is planning to further study the needs of racialized, newcomer, Indigenous, and LGBTQIA2S citizens.

As for usability, more Edmontonians may choose transit over car trips if they know they won't have to wait long for a ride, Hotton-McDonald said.

"Maybe for those who are primarily car users, if they see more people using (transit), they see it's available in the off-peak, maybe it will spark (the thought): 'Hey, I'm just going to hop on the bus quickly,'" she said.

Coun. Michael Janz, who organized the recent Transit Camp to explore issues facing public transportation, agrees that increased frequency can result in more ridership. He noted Edmonton's City Plan has an objective to have 50% of trips be by transit by 2050.

"We can get hundreds and hundreds of new riders every week with these additional hours," he said in an interview. "It's going to be very helpful and will help more people to take transit more often."

Transportation researcher Emily Grisé, who co-heads the Moving Transport Forward lab at the University of Alberta, said "induced demand" can come from an increase in frequency. That is, buses that come more frequently entice more people to ride.

"Nobody likes to be on a crowded bus anymore," she said. "(If) somebody sees now that bus is frequent at off-peak, 'I'm going to take transit because it's convenient now.' So I would hypothesize that we would see induced demand as a result of an increased service level."

Grisé, Janz, and Hotton-MacDonald all agreed that increased transit frequency also contributes to safety. Each nodded to a "safety in numbers" feeling around transit and the option to disembark from an unsafe-feeling vehicle when you know you can board another one soon.

Grisé plans to conduct a longitudinal analysis of off-peak transit use of ETS once service changes are implemented.

"These things don't happen overnight," she said. "Maybe a year's worth of data," is what she's looking for to "have a really solid evidence base of people's travel behaviours."