The City of Brandon will be changing up its transit routes Monday to adapt to its struggles to keep an aging fleet of buses on the road.
Brandon has 17 active buses, but 11 are from 2010 and are starting to show their age, says Carla Richardson, Brandon’s director of transportation. On any given day, as many as 10 of those buses may be out of service for maintenance and repairs.
“That is deteriorating more quickly than what we would have liked,” Richardson said. “They are really showing their age and they need to have some structural repairs done.”
At least eight buses are needed to provide 30-minute service at stops, which is the current service level the city is trying to maintain.
To repair the fleet, Brandon city council approved an amendment allowing it to use up to $3.5 million from the 2024 capital plan for transit equipment to refurbish buses or purchase used buses.
As well, as of Monday, service on some transit routes — 5, 14 and 8 — will be reduced.
The average lifespan of a bus is around 18 to 20 years, Richardson said, and there’s heavy demand on Brandon’s buses. On average, each logs 18 hours a day on the road and will put on around 1 million kilometres a year, providing 1.3 million rides in the city of 54,000, she said.
The original plan was to purchase new transit buses, but the city would have had to wait up to four years for them to arrive, Richardson said. That made refurbishing buses to extend their life — which can be done in around 12 weeks, at a cost of $350,000 per bus — the best option, she said.
“Refurbishment is a big deal. It is stripping the bus all the way down to the structure and the frame,” Richardson said.
While repairs are underway, the city will help cover transit routes by using rental equipment, TransCab — which provides on-demand service to riders in some areas — and more Access Buses.
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The cost of the project is justified because the need to get buses on the road is urgent, said Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett.
“We want to make sure that the services remain as flawless as they can,” he said, and right now, that means extending the life of existing vehicles.
The repairs are part of a bigger plan, he said, because Brandon will probably see fundamental shifts to adjust to a growing and changing population.
Westman Immigrant Services community outreach manager Hannah Stollery says her organization helps thousands of newcomers each year, most of whom use Brandon Transit.
Around 23 per cent of Brandon residents are immigrants, the city estimates.
Transit service is “extremely important,” Stollery said. “We know that a lot of our clients … ride the bus on an every day basis.”
Westman Immigrant Services even partnered with the city to place two bus stops in front of its building, since so many of its clients use the service. That means it’s critical to them that routes run smoothly, or even that the service expands, she said.
Future plans
As for the future of the fleet, Richardson said everything is on the table.
The city is in an interim phase for its transit system, and is focused on maintaining services as it works on a 20-year capital plan for transit, she said.
Transportation will be back at city council in October with the route planning team, Richardson said, which is looking at how to cover routes both immediately and in the long term.
The city is also looking at refurbishing its 2016 buses later next year.
As the city works on its transit plan, it needs to consider where the community needs access — around homes, workplaces, recreation areas and parks, Stollery said.
Many of Westman Immigrant Services’ programs work with clients to teach them how to use the transit system, since it’s often their first way of getting around the city.
“There are definitely a lot of newcomers using transit in the first year and until they decide to make the jump and get into driving,” Stollery said. “But even then, the transit is such a cost-effective option for everybody.”