At Monday evening's meeting, Owen Sound's City Council approved awarding a new transit service contract based on the status quo of fixed routes and half-hour service to Voyago. The current contract with First Student will remain in effect through August 26, 2022.

They have also directed staff to monitor the performance of the transit service for the first year of the new contract and prepare a report including
any recommendations that may improve the transit system for the Operations Committee’s consideration.   Councillor Thomas and Councillor Tamming commented that they believe that the days of conventional transit are numbered.  Thomas said he would be speaking to the Operations Committee about options; Councillor Tamming said he could not support a five-year contract.

The current 2022 budgets for conventional transit and mobility transit are $1,138,500.00 and $284,625.00 respectfully.

There were three bids on the contract, the other two being DriversSeat and First Transit. Voyago scored the highest in qualifications and costs based on the evaluation criteria. Voyago’s hourly rates were the lowest for each of the service levels requested in the RFP.

Given the ever-increasing costs of providing transit associated with reduced ridership revenues and contractor costs, the staff recommends maintaining the current level of service for the first year of the contract. This will allow staff to monitor the transit system’s performance in terms of ridership to see if it rebounds or increases based on what was experienced over the last two years due to the impacts of COVID.

The service level that is being recommended is considered the status quo. The status quo consists of the existing four fixed routes that will operate
from 6:30 AM to 6:00 PM (the last bus will leave the Transit Terminal at 6:00 PM) from Monday to Friday. The buses will run from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM on Saturdays, with the last bus leaving the Transit Terminal at 4:00 PM. The successful proponent will also provide a fleet of brand new low-floor buses.

Voyago’s price to provide conventional transit services in the first year of the contract beginning August 27 at the status quo levels is $951,740 (adjusted for net HST and low floor buses). For mobility transit the costs are $239,698 (adjusted for net HST and low floor buses). Both prices are approximately the amounts the City budgeted for in 2019. This is also a reduction in costs of what was budgeted for in 2022 for Conventional Transit ($186,760) and for Mobility Transit ($44,927). This reduction would be fully experienced going forward into 2023.

The total contract price over the five-year period will be $4,946,670 (plus HST) for Conventional Transit and $1,245,828 (plus HST) for Mobility Transit.

One area that staff will be looking into while monitoring the transit system’s performance during the first year of the contract is the extension of hours
from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. This period would be a perfect opportunity to explore the use of an on-demand service, which could be implemented with
only two buses at the cost of approximately $110,000 (plus HST) on an annual basis.

The City completed a Transit Study in September of 2021 which analyzed and evaluated the City’s existing fixed-route system including route coverage, route ridership, schedule adherence, and infrastructure perspectives.

source: staff report OP-22-024