Jasper Municipal Council directed administration Tuesday to develop a Transit Service Standards Policy following a service interruption during the recent extreme cold.
On Saturday, Jan. 13, Jasper Transit cancelled around 2.5 hours of morning service due to a series of issues that impacted the three buses.
Five days prior, one unit had a safety hazard involving a loose overhead storage bin and had to be removed from service.
A second unit experienced a broken window overnight on Jan. 12, likely due to the extreme cold that reached below -40 C.
On the morning of Jan. 13, the contractor was unable to access the final unit, again due to the cold.
“Based on that information, administration chose to cancel the morning service and resume in the afternoon at the regular time of 3:35 p.m.,” said CAO Given in an update to council.
This cancellation meant the loss of two trips to Pyramid Lake, Jasper Park Lodge (JPL) and two town loops.
Pattie Pavlov, executive director of the Jasper Park Chamber of Commerce, asked council Tuesday about the rationale behind the decision.
“My understanding is that there were opportunities available to cover off that 2.5-hour spread, for which there was no service, and there were people, in fact, out in the cold waiting for the bus.”
Coun. Kathleen Waxer told council in a verbal report how the cancellation troubled her.
“I was troubled, firstly, because people may have been waiting outside in the frigid weather and unsure about when the bus was coming and whether to abandon the wait and stress about getting to work,” Waxer said.
“Secondly, I was troubled because I saw a lost opportunity to showcase the value of public transit. I was imagining, on that exceptionally cold morning, some people might have chosen the option of taking the bus rather than trying to start their frozen cars.”
She was also troubled because cancelling service might have set back the trust building for this new service, which just started in September.
In his update to council, CAO Bill Given said data showing that weekend mornings had very low ridership helped influenced the decision to cancel service that morning.
While a third-party provider was an option, in the absence of any other direction or guidance, administration decided not to pursue this given the extreme conditions and the limited number of customers likely to be impacted.
Those impacted by the disruption can contact the municipality to receive a courtesy pass for one month of free service.
According to Given, only one impacted person had reached out so far.
“To prevent a situation like this in the future, administration is going to work on improving our public communication to ensure that riders have more timely data of the location of buses and the status of the service,” he said.
Once the contractor finishes installing GPS systems on the buses, the municipality will be able to direct users to where they can find real-time information.
“We also have worked to reaffirm with our contracted partner that we have expectation of them to meet the requirements under the contract to take appropriate measures to provide service reliability,” Given said.
He added that the incident revealed a need to establish service standards through council policy.
A policy would help establish how the transit service evolves and include items such as when and how service might be cancelled and under what conditions, communication approaches and other standards.
Mayor Richard Ireland supported the development of a policy but emphasized that administration would still be making day-to-day decisions.
He also extended appreciation to the staff for having to make a tough decision.
“It doesn't matter whether it is an administrative decision or a council decision; our decisions are scrutinized and often criticized,” he said.
“I do understand that social media was alive with comments and not all of them favourable, and it's impossible, from our perspective, to have somebody on staff prepared to respond to all of that, so it takes its own route, but I do recognize that no matter what the decision was, we would be open to criticism.”
Administration will present a draft of the Transit Service Standards Policy at a future committee of the whole meeting.
General service update
In a general update on transit, Given reported that administration had completed a $5-million federal contribution agreement.
This grant will go toward specific projects, including the construction of an indoor transit storage facility, or bus barn, and charging infrastructure for EV buses, as well as e-bikes and associated charging infrastructure.
Parks Canada has confirmed it will contribute $145,000 per year for three years toward transit.
Grande Yellowhead School Division and Conseil scolaire Centre-Nord have confirmed their contributions with the exact amounts to be determined.
Administration has initiated a preliminary design scope-of-work and Class D cost estimate to inform a request for proposal for the bus barn.
Users can now purchase passes online through HotSpot and at one physical parking kiosk, and cash fareboxes are now in all fleet units.
Jasper Transit had 15,390 riders last year, specifically 8,735 students and 6,655 other members of the public.
September had 5,329 riders but this declined to 3,886 in October, 3,170 in November and 3,005 in December.
Transit earned $3,844 in passes and had $123,400 in partner contributions – Parks Canada gave $45,000 and the school boards gave $78,400.
Winter service schedule
In response to public feedback and council direction, the municipality will be adjusting its winter service schedule.
Changes include establishing separate weekday and weekend schedules, instituting a new weekday town loop which starts at 7:42 a.m. instead of 8:25 a.m. and altering the JPL route so the first general service bus arrives at 8:42 a.m. instead of 9:25 a.m.
This will provide a transit option for Grade 7-12 students in the townsite to travel to school in the morning and an earlier commute option between town and JPL.
The changes will also increase service to the northeast end of town by adding two new stops.
These benefits will be achieved at no additional cost by eliminating underperforming town loops on weekend mornings.
The adjusted schedule will begin Feb. 5 and continue until the end of the winter service schedule on May 16.
