This post was originally published on my Substack newsletter.
For the week of March 22-28, OC Transpo had an average of 542 buses available for weekday service – a marked improvement from early January, when that number was as low as 467. OC needs 520 buses to deliver its scheduled routes.
That’s one of the highlights from the weekly bus and light rail fleet update from OC Transpo. Other notes from today’s update to Council:
- The increase in buses available is due to the arrival of new zero-emission buses (ZEBs) and advancing the maintenance action plan.
- 109 ZEBs have been delivered to OC Transpo so far in 2026.
- There are 85 ZEBs available for service. (The balance are being prepped for customers and will be available soon.)
- The average weekly undelivered bus service was 1.5%. That’s better than earlier in the year (see chart below) but still off the target of 0.5%.
- There were 715 undelivered trips during the week, out of 44,822 trips scheduled.
- If the high number of buses remains consistent, OC Transpo will soon be able to re-schedule the 255 trips that it temporarily suspended due to the bus shortage.
- Over the week of March 22, there were 22 light rail vehicles below the 100,000 kilometre limit on the Cartridge Bearing Assemblies (CBAs). O-Train Line 1 continued to operate every three to four minutes during peak periods.
The next major update will be at Transit Committee one week from today on April 9.
