Transit Agencies and On-Demand Transit

 Hello!

Often touted as something 'new' and 'innovative,' on-demand transit has been around for many decades. While this transit plan works for low-density areas with minimal, since the COVID-19 pandemic, many agencies are replacing conventional routes with on-demand for the sake of efficiency. This on-demand 'creep' may have made sense when ridership bottomed out in the spring of 2020, I find there is a bit of disconnectivity encouraged by over-reliance on it. 

In this piece, I will explain some key points related to on-demand transit, and then briefly look at four transit agencies, and how they are using (or struggling to use) on-demand and conventional transit effectively.

What is on-demand transit?

As the name suggests, on-demand transit is when, instead of the bus running on a schedule, it operates more like a taxi. A customer requests the bus, usually by calling the agency or using an app, and within a window, it picks the passenger up. Two things can happen after this. One, the bus brings the customer directly to the door of where they wish to go. Alternatively, the bus will bring the customer to a regular stop, and customers switch to conventional service. Additionally, some on-demand transit is called 'flex', where a regular route operates, and a deviation off the main route only happens if there is a request to serve that area. Each mode has its benefit, but there is a desire to not encourage door-to-door services are it could tie up a vehicle for a long trip.

Uber has long been a proponent of on-demand transit, as they hope to get some of the contracts that the agencies put out for the service. In their own writing, however, Uber notes that on-demand is not really sustainable when demand exceeds ten passengers an hour. At this point, service needs to be converted to conventional service, as the supposed efficiencies no longer exist. This has occurred in Toronto: the 78 St Andrews bus, prior to 1981, was operated by GO Transit's Dial-a-bus. Currently the route demand is 90 passengers an hour (with fluctuations both ways throughout the day), far beyond what on-demand could reasonably service. As such, it is important to view on-demand as 'temporary' in most cases, and, if permanent, densities of homes and jobs must be very low.

One important note about on-demand is that it is kind of hard to map. On Google Maps, for example, there's presently no marking of on-demand zones, and so it appears as if an area is just devoid of transit. This is a major barrier towards actually letting people know transit is an option. While it is possible that Google will implement zones on their maps, there is also the risk of maps getting cluttered by overlapping and conflicting zones.

I also want to note that some agencies are entirely on-demand, like Innisfil Transit, which operates through Uber. I won't discuss it here, as that is a whole other breed of issue, but if you wish to read about the service, you can click here for an article from the Guardian.

Agency #1: Durham Region Transit

When COVID-19 hit, Durham Region Transit quickly pivoted so that a majority of their services (outside of Oshawa) were on-demand. This made sense at the time, and Durham Region Transit made it very clear that this was a temporary solution. Two and a half years later, they have kept much of their promise. Many routes have returned once demand crossed the ten-person-per-hour threshold, and urbanized areas far from a conventional bus stop area are still covered by on-demand. In rural Durham, the on-demand zone covers the entire area, which has greatly expanded transit options. Lastly, all of the urbanized Durham Region is covered by on-demand overnight, where customers can use the service to access the N1 and N2 routes.

Overall, I think DRT has taken a positive approach to on-demand. That said, there are still some outstanding issues. Recently, at a board meeting, a woman complained that because she lived far from the GO station, her on-demand vehicle often deviated to pick up two or three other passengers. This meant that she could never guarantee being on a particular train, and this made her late for work a few times. If DRT is planning on keeping some low-density areas on-demand, they need to make the service attractive with some degree of predictability.

Agency #2: York Region Transit

YRT's approach to on-demand is lazy. Similar to DRT, many routes were converted to on-demand at the start of COVID, and some new areas have gotten service, like Nobleton and Schomberg. However, unlike DRT, York Region Transit has not converted these services back to conventional. I'm sure this is because on-demand has not hit the ten-passenger demand required, but I also think this is due to some deliberate choices on the part of YRT.

The vast majority of YRT on-demand services, which they term 'Mobility-on-Request', or MOR, bring passengers to a conventional bus stop. Anyone who has taken YRT can see why this is a problem: YRT services are terribly infrequent. Take the MOR service to Kleinburg. Passengers have four route transfer options. The 85 Rutherford and 4 Major Mackenzie are relatively frequent by YRT standards, but they are often delayed, and the transfer points are in suburban areas with few amenities, like a store or fast food place, to wait in for your transfer. The other two options, the 7 Martin Grove and 13 Islington, are very infrequent, and again, have pretty inhospitable transfer points. 

The second issues I have with MOR is that they don't cover all areas. As some people know, I have been trying to use every GO station (currently at 65 out of 72!). Two of the remaining stations, Gormley and Bloomington, are in York Region, and lack conventional services. I figured I would just take MOR to get to the station, even if it is annoying. That's when I found out neither station is located in a MOR zone! Even though the whole point of Bloomington was to relieve Aurora GO, there is no way to actually benefit from the station without using a car. Aurora's MOR stays low-ridership because it fails to make meaningful connections.

Agency #3: Guelph Transit

The dashed line is the flex area.

Guelph Transit experimented with on-demand, but the experimented 16 Southgate route has been converted back to conventional. However, demand was so great that a new 19 Hanlon Creek route was established to cover areas on the west side of the Hanlon Expressway, which is great! Buses sit for five minutes at Bett Court before coming back east. However, there is a flex zone along Teal Drive, and so if a customer requests it, the bus uses the five minutes to run the small loop. 

I just wonder what the point is. Like, if you're scheduling for the deviation anyways, just run the deviation at all hours? It is an additional step that makes things annoying for passengers. When I used the flex to this area, by the way, I had a tough time with the app so I just asked my driver to bring me to Teal Drive, which he did. Obviously, however, this wouldn't work if I was getting on at Teal.

Agency #4: Barrie Transit

Barrie Transit was recently in the crosshairs of one of my rants. Since then, they have presented a network redesign for 2025, called 'Vision Transit'. I think there are some good things in the plan, including new areas with service, but it is not perfect. You can see the full slide deck here. One thing I note is how fragmented and extensive the on-demand network is. Sure, it makes sense to have many areas covered by on-demand, but I could easily draw simple lines connecting some larger areas together. Some of the zones are also so small that demand will never exceed a handful of passengers a day. In total, there are seven zones, split into twenty-three unique areas, which is frankly ridiculous. I get that they have limited resources, but I genuinely don't understand how the majority of zones C, D, E, and F couldn't be replaced by a route that requires maybe three buses at most. This ultra-fine application of on-demand significantly fragments the transit network as a whole; the map otherwise is quite thin on one key thing: service.

Conclusions

While I don't think on-demand is totally negative, there are a number of concerns that must be accounted for. The four above agencies provide a range of service provision in the region, and identify both positives (new services and more coverage), and negatives (network degradation and annoying transfers). I think Durham Region Transit's model is closely rooted in reality, and should be adopted by other agencies. 

An upcoming blog post will take us to Montreal, and will discuss another issue related to on-demand service. Stay tuned!