Transit System in Quesnel Applauded
By 250 News
Saturday, July 23, 2005 04:04 AM
In Prince George, it's difficult to get people to use public transit. It is not uncommon to pass a bus at any time of the day, and the only person on it, is the driver. In fact, there have been suggestions it would be cheaper to pay cab fare for those who need plublic transit, rather than keep the buses running in Prince George. With that said, maybe P-G can learn something from its next door neighbour.
Quesnel's transit system has been hailed by BC Transit officials as one that’s made “spectacular achievements,” and will be featured by the body as a model for other communities to study.
The glowing comments were made by several members of a delegation from BC Transit during a meeting with members of Quesnel’s City Council, city staff and Five Five Transport operators in Council Chambers at Quesnel City Hall.
Quesnel’s transit system will be used as an example of Best Practices in Public Transit, a case study that will be distributed to other municipalities and featured in various trade publications. Slocombe presented Mayor Nate Bello and Five Five Transport operators Cliff and Sherri Halls with plaques commending the transit system’s outstanding performance, which includes ridership increases averaging 20 per cent each year since 2002.
Mayor Nate Bello said he’s proud of the transit system and the vision by all involved who have helped it evolve over the years, including those who use it. “We’ve fine-tuned our system,” he explained. “There’s a lot of strength in our system in terms of quality customer service.”
Previous Story - Next Story
Email
Print
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
Del.icio.usReturn to Home
Posted by: gypsy on July 23 2005 1:26 PM
All the above information tells me is that if there was an averge of 1 person per vehicle in 2002, we Quesnel is getting close to getting two riders per vehicle by the end of 2005.
There are several methods typically used to measure the effectiveness of a transit system. One of those is the ratio of volume to capacity. Another is the ratio of passenger distance to population.
"Greater" Kingston Ontario has a population about 50% higher than "Greater" Prince George.
Public Transit Ridership in Kingston is 2.5 million, in PG it is 800,000. So ridership is 300% higher in Kingston than in PG.
Kingston operates 34 buses, PG 21 buses. Thus there are just over 50% more busses in Kingston than in PG. So, that fits in with the population difference.
However, each Kingston bus, on average carries twice as many passengers as the average bus in Prince George.
It seems to me that we would want to seek out cities such as Kingston to determine what is being done there to attract passengers.