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Timothy Tao

Transit Committee - 12 June, 2025

Introduction On 12 June, 2025, Transit Committee met for the fourth time this year. You can find the meeting video here. This meeting was presentation heavy, and as such, this update is a little longer than usual as well. As usual, councilors talked a range of questions, some good, many

Renee Amilcar leaves OC Transpo, path forward is unclear

Introduction Renée Amilcar announced early this month that she would resign from her position as General Manager at OC Transpo, and move to Montreal as head of Mobilé Infra Québec. This has both written annd unwritten implications for the future of OC Transpo. This indicates problems bubbling beneath the surface,

Route 11 snapshot: 28 April-25 May

Introduction This article will discuss service quality on Route 11 between 28 April and 25 May, which is a period of four weeks. As always, data is sourced from Transsee. Cancellations The overall cancellation rate sat at 2.9%, which is a significant improvement over March's 13.4%

Bus Scheduling, Part II: Interlining

Introduction This is the second part of a three-part series. To read the first part on runtimes and layovers, click here. In this article, I will focus on the practice of interlining. According to OC Transpo, whose memo you can read here, interlining is essential to delivering the most

Bus Scheduling, Part I: Run Times, Layovers, and Propagating Delays

Introduction Reliability is a major concern for both OC Transpo and its passengers. According to OC Transpo's own surveys, reliability of service is the primary concern of its riders, while Transit Committee is dominated with discussion of reliability: fleet, scheduling, customer satisfaction, plans, and more. It's

Funding OC Transpo

Introduction It is orthodoxy in Ottawa's transit advocacy circles that OC Transpo is underfunded. Advocacy groups from Ottawa Transit Riders and Strong Towns Ottawa to Free Transit Ottawa and Horizon Ottawa use phrases like "underfund", "properly fund", and "neglected to fund" to

New Ways to Bus: no new paradigm for OC Transpo

After two years of consultation, recommendations, and delays (mostly delays), New Ways to Bus goes into effect today, the 27th of April. These changes are extensive, with "changes" to nearly every route. Whether that's your frequency, routing, or travel time, OC Transpo is selling this as

Route 90 snapshot: 24 March-20 April

This article presents a "snapshot" of service quality on Route 90 between the 24th of March and 20th of April. Data sourced from Transsee. Cancellations During the analysis period, the overall cancellation rate was 5.4%. Northbound trips saw a slightly higher rate at 5.5%; southbound trips

How do we measure reliability?

Introduction At Transit Committee (TC) on the 10th of April, reliability was the big issue of the day. Reliability statistics, reliability breakdowns, reliability plans, the discussion was centered around reliability even if the solutions were not found that day. In light of this, and in light of my own criticism

Transit Committee - 10 April, 2025

Introduction On Thursday, the 10th of April 2025, Transit Committee held its third meeting of the year. Video link here, the meeting begins at 20:45. This meeting was a head-turner, and featured some good discussion of OC Transpo's reliability problems, and the hard questions needed to