Transit Windsor's major routes are on time but overloaded. There's a fix on the way

New numbers from the city show that the majority of primary and secondary bus routes in Windsor are arriving on time and overloaded again this year.

Prioritizing traffic lights for buses and adjusting the number of vehicles and hours for certain routes is how the city keeps buses on schedule.

But fixing crowded buses — a problem Transit Windsor executive director Tyson Cragg calls a "good problem to have" — is tied to the city's wait for new buses ordered in 2023. 

"I'm confident that the fleet that we have incoming is going to have a major impact on the reliability that we have," said Cragg.

The data from the city is part of a new push for transparency from councillors who act as the service's board of directors. They asked for more performance metrics from Transit Windsor. 

Those metrics show that the system is missing industry standards for boardings per hour on primary and secondary routes for the second year in a row. 

"Once you get over 35 (boardings per hour), you're looking at situations where you have standing loads on buses," said Cragg. 

"Higher numbers are indicative of service concerns: overload situations and missed passengers."

The metrics are up on every route except the Crosstown 2 and the tunnel bus to Detroit. 

Routes like the Transway 1A, Dominion 5 (now Route 115) and Dougall 6 are the city's busiest routes, averaging more than 50 people boarding each hour over a day of service.

Cragg said it's a good thing from an efficiency perspective but means there likely needs to be more buses per hour on those routes.

When asked what the city can do to get those numbers in line, Cragg said that new buses the city has already ordered will help.

"Newer equipment is going to make our service more reliable," he said.