Huron Shores Area Transit 2023 Ridership Increased By 155%

by Bob Montgomery

Huron Shores Area Transit presented its 2023 year-end report to its five transit partners on April 15th.

The report to the Municipalities of Lambton Shores, Bluewater, South Huron, North Middlesex, and Kettle & Stony Point First Nation highlights their cornerstone achievement of a 25 percent increase over the projected goal of sixteen-thousand trips, hitting a total of twenty-thousand and sixty-six passenger trips. They anticipate maintaining this momentum with a projected 2024 ridership of 32-thousand passenger trips.

Transit Coordinator Susan Mills says among other promising metrics they saw a consistent monthly ridership average of 1,672 passengers, contributing to an overall year-over-year ridership increase of 155 percent. Route 1 Sarnia to Grand Bend via Lambton Shores had the most dramatic increase in passengers with a 275 percent increase. This growth was fueled by student workers commuting to the area for employment, working for businesses located in Arkona, Forest, Grand Bend, Port Franks, Exeter and Dashwood. She adds, before 2023 the London to Grand Bend line was the busiest line but in the past year the young people coming into the area from Sarnia have taken over.

Mills says they do have some concerns about a couple of routes. “We definitely want to increase ridership on our two very rural routes and that would be route 3 that goes through Bluewater up to Goderich, and route 4 going through Parkhill and Ailsa Craig. We did some work on route 4 last year and we've seen a slight increase so we want to see how that plays out this spring and summer. Route 3 is definitely a concern, it's still down so we're wondering what to do about that.” One option they're looking at is switching that over to an on-demand system. Mills notes Huron County is working on a workforce initiative this year that may effect the number of people coming on the bus, but they're looking at a number of options.

Mills says with the post-pandemic transit years behind them, they can confidently say that one developing trend shows a more stable ridership pattern across all months, with no significant seasonal lows. And that suggests a growing reliance on the transit system for essential daily activities, including employment, shopping, and attending various appointments. In addition, with the use of GPS tracking technology, they're pleased to say their buses completed 3,979 bus runs and remained on time 72 percent of the time, which, when tracking to the minute, is an impressive statistic even when compared to larger urban transit systems.

For more information about Huron Shores Area Transit year-end results, the full report is available for download as a PDF here.