We often see transit in small towns as being a useless service that is costly for what it’s worth, but we never look beyond that. Why is there so few usage, why are there still so many cars on the roads?
Basing myself on Rimouski’s transit system, you’ll understand how a city of about 50 000 people can have a great transit system, without using too many ressources, all while deserving about 80% of it’s urban population.
Constituting of 3 bidirectional lines running every 30 minutes all day, Rimouski has a more complete system than most other Quebec towns of 50 000 residents or less. On top of those fixed route lines, they use on demand transit to gather people from further away.
But why want a fixed route system, compared to an on demand system, with much lower costs? Simply because it is more predictable for locals and tourists alike. It is easy to go to a stop and wait for the next bus, contrarily to having to book a vehicle through an app, which can be hard for some people that aren’t used to using technology.
Even if we are able to install the app, and use it, sometimes, the on demand system, just won’t have the availability at peak hours. As a car has only 5 seats, if a 6th person wants to get on, they won’t be able to book the ride, unlike in a bus, where you can stand.
Sometimes, having a bus network can also be more cost effective, because now, a driver can serve 50 passengers compared to 5, in a car. It’s literally a 1000% jump in driver to passenger ratio!
And yea, seeing a 40 foot long bus on the main street of your small town may look out of context, but who said it had to be a long bus. A minibus can often be enough for the demand, all while not taking up too much space on the narrow streets of your downtown core.
In the end, every type of transit has it’s place, but in many cases, with some coucil power, your on demand system could be upgraded to a fixed route system as to upgrade capacity, and efficency.