Ridership is up but cost recovery down for Kamloops Transit.
(JESSICA WALLACE / iNFOnews.ca)
August 20, 2013 - 11:37 AM
KAMLOOPS – The numbers are officially in and while Kamloops Transit did not hit many of the budgeted items for 2012/13 it did see improvements over the previous year.
With conventional ridership up 1.6 per cent (passenger trips per revenue service hour) and the number of kilometres of service provided up 2.8 per cent to 2,565,503 km councillors advocating the sustainable transportation are happy to see the continued increase in service, even if it did not hit the targets set out for the service.
Nancy Bepple recently took to Twitter to tout the 24 per cent increase in ridership over a five year period, noting it is great news for the city as it strives towards being more sustainable.
When compared to other cities within the same tier Kamloops Transit actually operated less hours per capita but is well above the average cost recovery level with 32.4 per cent (the best within the tier) and the number of rides per hour with 33.9.
Operating costs were up 10.8 per cent this past year but came in more than $500,000 below the $11 million budget. Notably cost recovery was down 9.1 per cent, missing the target by nearly two per cent.
Negative feedback on drivers and service is also down over the same time period, with service related complaints down to 19.4 from 27.9 per 500,000 rides.
Four of the 16 transit routes (Tranquille/airport,Westsyde, Aberdeen and Gleneagles) accounted for about 65 per cent of all trips last year. The route with the lowest ridership was the Yellowhead route, which runs from the North Shore exchange to Heffley Creek and Rayleigh, making up just 0.28 per cent of all ridership. School specials, which run routes to the high schools before and after school, made up 2.4 per cent of all ridership.
To contact a reporter for this story, email jstahn@infotelnews.ca, call (250)819-3723 or tweet @JennStahn.
News from © iNFOnews, 2013