Transit Facts

I thought I would share some fun facts that I learned about TransLink and the cost of providing service. TransLink has been working on their service optimization plan and their most recent schedule changes reflects this. The good thing is that in this optimization process they kept some routes that would be considered underperforming like the new 364 and 388 routes as TransLink wants to give the routes time to mature. If they went solely on performance metrics, I’m certain that many more routes would have been cut back in the South of Fraser. BTW: the 502 route (which I take) is the most over-crowded bus in the South of Fraser.

If you were wondering, it costs $118 an hour to keep a regular bus running and $48 an hour to keep a community shuttle running. In total, a regular bus costs on average costs $646,000 per year to operate. For a route like the 502, it costs something like $4 million a year to run! This is good to remember when you hear people say silly things like “all TransLink needs to do is use their old buses to improve service.”

Another interesting fact is that the cost of operating a bus is 80% labour. That includes the driver and the mechanics that keep the buses in working order.