Voice of the Canadian transit industry

In early 2014, we ran our first annual “Voice of Public Transportation Survey” to give Canadian transit professionals an opportunity to share their insights and opinions on the key issues and challenges facing the industry.

We have now completed our analysis of the results, and share in this edition of the Review some of the more interesting findings. Those who responded to the survey will be provided with a full analysis – so be sure to participate in next years’ survey!

The survey focused on three main areas:

• The role of respondents and/or their agency
• The main challenges faced by transportation agencies in the next three years
• Individual respondents’ views of the main issues they will face in their role in the coming years, particularly related to specific projects that are being taken forward

The main findings of the survey can be grouped into two themes: network operations, and system planning and delivery.

Network Operations: the main issues were seen to be ongoing operations, State of Good Repair (SGR), and service expansion. Many associated comments focused on the challenges of delivering efficient transportation to existing but inefficient land use and development. Comments also related to maintaining or improving revenue recovery. Organizations appear to be looking for new ways to gain customer loyalty, enabling them to increase revenues either to help improve cost recovery or to aid and fund service expansion.

While many respondents worked for agencies with some responsibility for managing roads and traffic, congestion was generally not seen as a concern. On the contrary, many respondents saw congestion as a key component of their toolkit for building support for investment in transit (and active transportation, or walking and cycling) networks and promoting long term mode shift.

System Planning and Delivery: the main issues and challenges identified were the planning of high capacity transit corridors, and the need for ongoing engagement of stakeholders and the public throughout the process. Respondents saw this as particularly important to gain support and aid in the delivery and funding of final projects. Even in smaller cities across the country, most respondents indicated that their priority transit projects were focusing on reallocating road space to transit. This is consistent with the relatively low levels of concern with local congestion issues.

Active transportation was seen as a major area for growth and investment, not least because it can deliver mode shift at low cost or even no cost. However, while many respondents recognized the role and need for investment in active transportation, few felt that their agency was dedicating sufficient resources to it, particularly compared to investment in transit and roads planning.

A consistent issue, identified across all areas of transportation operation, development and delivery, was the need to be able to support “evidence-based decision-making” with clear information on costs, funding, financing and hence the ability to demonstrate value-for-money. Respondents saw international best practice, and “views from elsewhere”, as useful means of informing this debate, particularly where expenditure on transportation is a politically sensitive issue.

The inaugural 2014 survey was a great success. For 2015, we plan not only to repeat the survey but also to expand it to include the USA. We hope that you found the summary interesting and will join the conversation next year.