Could a flexible, efficient and on-demand transit service be on its way to Orillia?
City council has agreed to take a closer look at the idea during 2025 budget deliberations, following a report from the city’s on-demand transit working group.
On-demand transit is one of several recommendations from 2023 meant to improve city transit, and the working group has met numerous times over the past year to put together an array of ideas for on-demand transit in Orillia.
Some of these ideas are as follows:
- Entering into an agreement with a third-party software provider that provides for booking, data collection and a dynamic hybrid operating model
- Retaining a fixed route until 7 p.m. and moving to fully on-demand during evenings and weekends, according to existing schedules
- Using a stop-to-stop model
- Including OWLS in the pilot for on-demand transit
- Expanding to underserviced and growth areas in the city as one of several medium-term goals.
During the meeting, a working group representative said on-demand transit needs to be accessible, convenient and not reduce the levels of transit service in the city.
“We spent a number of months discussing the pros and cons of on-demand transit,” Brandon Amyot, working group facilitator, said at Monday’s council meeting. “With what we've put forward, we hope it will give enough for staff to work with over the next few months, and put forward some recommendations, hopefully, for the 2025 budget.”
After discussion, council agreed to forward the discussion to budget deliberations, requesting a staff report on the feasibility and costs of phasing on-demand transit in beginning in 2025.
Coun. Jay Fallis questioned whether on-demand transit to bring cost savings to the city, with Amyot responding that cost savings are certainly possible, but dependent on a number of factors, such as system design and upfront costs.
“In the City of Barrie, in terms of the system that they designed, they're realizing savings of about $10 million over 10 years,” Amyot said. “They have a completely different system, different demographics. We can't necessarily say that everything will come to Orillia, but the short answer would be … there could be savings.”
Given the complexity of implementing an on-demand transit system, Coun. Janet-Lynne Durnford questioned whether hiring a consultant to help with the process would be worthwhile.
“Certainly, there will be a significant amount of work that will be required in order to determine best recommendations moving forward, and one of the things (staff) had suggested was that perhaps there would be a benefit to bringing in a consultant in order to assist with that overall evaluation,” said CAO Gayle Jackson.
“I would suggest that we put the motion forward as is, that we'll have a look at the report, and then if it is required to bring forward a recommendation for consultant we would do that in a further staff report,” she added.
Coun. David Campbell expressed support for the idea, and agreed bringing in a consultant could be a good move given the complexity of rolling it out.
“I think it's certainly worth looking into. I totally, totally support a staff report coming back to us with some recommendations,” he said. “It is a complicated issue, (with) a lot of variables involved, so I think I can see the value in a consultant and expert coming in and having a look at it.”
“Orillia is unique, just like any community, so our solution will have to be unique as well.”
