The Success of Innisfil Transit
By Chris Pangilinan, Head of Global Public Transportation and Accessibility Policy
Summary
Innisfil Transit’s first of its kind on-demand public transportation system, powered by Uber, was found to give residents and visitors much higher levels of accessibility at lower per trip costs to the town than a similarly priced fixed-route system, while being available throughout Innisfil 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Introduction
In 2015, following a period of growth, the Town of Innisfil, Ontario (population 36,566; 139 people/km²; 360 people/mi²) began looking into options to implement their first public transportation system. The town considered a traditional fixed-route system with one or two buses, and an on-demand system in which they would subsidize rides for residents. After careful study, Innisfil determined that a one bus system ($270k annually [all currency in CAD]) or a two bus system ($610k annually) would be too costly for the limited service they could provide within the 262 km² town, and opted for an on-demand system powered by Uber. Operations began in 2017 with the town committing a minimum of $100k and $125k in funding for the first and second years.
Being one of the first municipalities to implement a full on-demand public transportation system, many questions were raised about how much the service would cost the town and the system’s riders, and if the benefits would be worth those costs compared to the fixed route option. After three years of operations, Ryerson University looked into these questions and more in a report released earlier this year. The Town of Innisfil also released its own summary of operations through 2020 in a staff report dated April 2021.
Service Overview
Taking a ride on Innisfil Transit is as simple as taking an Uber. Riders can request an on-demand UberPool (UberX during the pandemic) through the Uber app or through a toll free number 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Riders can take trips throughout the town as long as the trip starts and ends within the municipality’s boundaries. For trips to specific destinations, such as the library, Innisfil Food Bank, or GO train station, rider fares range from $4 — $6. For trips elsewhere in Innisfil, the town subsidizes $4 of the total fare. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Innisfil Transit is offering all residents 2 free trips per month and an additional 4 free trips per month to essential locations such as grocery stores, pharmacies, the food bank, and the vaccination clinic.
Study Results
Ryerson University researchers examined Innisfil Transit trip data to uncover how well the on-demand system has been performing from the program’s inception in May 2017 until the onset of the pandemic in February 2020. At the request of the town, Uber provided the researchers a subset of the data that is shared with the Town of Innisfil so that they could conduct this study, while aggregating the data to a minimum level to protect rider and driver privacy.
During the nearly 3 year study period, over 220,000 trips were taken on Innisfil Transit. These trips cost approximately $17 each with the rider paying an average of $7 per trip and the town paying an average of $10 per trip. The total cost of the program to the town during the study period was $2.2 million, slightly higher than what the two-bus fixed-route system was estimated to cost ($1.8 million based on $610k annually over 3 years). However, as discussed below, these costs are not directly comparable, as the current service provides coverage across all of Innisfil, as opposed to the proposed bus routes that would have only provided access to those within direct walking distance to the bus stops along the route. The Town has estimated that a comparable level of transit coverage using buses could exceed $8 million in costs annually.
The Ryerson researchers found that the hypothetical two-bus fixed-route system was predicted to carry less than half the ridership of the on-demand system (102,000 trips) at a higher subsidy per rider ($14 to $17 per trip with a rider fare of $3). The $10 per trip subsidy of Innisfil Transit’s on-demand system was found by the researchers to be comparable to per trip costs of fixed-route transit (excluding capital) in urbanized areas of under 1 million in population.
The biggest advantage of an on-demand system, however, isn’t the surprisingly lower cost per trip, but rather the higher level of connectivity and availability. The proposed fixed-route system would only be operating 12 hours a day on weekdays and 8 hours a day on Saturdays with no Sunday service, while on-demand is available 24/7. Fixed-route would also be limited in the physical area it could serve while on-demand can cover all trips within the entire town. This led to two-thirds of all Innisfil Transit trips occurring outside of the proposed fixed-route service area or service hours.
Innisfil Transit’s high level of connectivity can also be visualized. In the two maps below, the researchers calculated, as a proxy for accessibility, how many residents a rider could reach within a 20 minute Innisfil Transit ride (6 minute wait time, 14 minute travel time) or within a 20 minute fixed-route bus ride (10 minutes of access, egress, and wait time, 10 minutes of travel time). Innisfil Transit’s on-demand system was found to provide 3.6 times more accessibility, and of course was available throughout the entire city, 24/7. This means that Innisfil Transit riders are able to reach many more destinations, any time of day, compared to the alternative fixed-route option that was considered.
A summary of these metrics and more can be seen in the table below.
Conclusion
For many communities, the primary role of public transportation is to provide access at an affordable fare for riders, and an affordable subsidy for the region. Fixed-route transit systems, for a number of reasons, will be far more effective at this than an on-demand system in nearly all medium and large sized cities. However, for communities approximately the size of Innisfil, and potentially for urbanized areas up to 1 million in population, as well as neighborhoods of similar proportions within larger cities, on-demand has demonstrated to not only deliver very high levels of accessibility, but to do so at competitive per-trip costs to fixed-route transit. The result is that the convenience and reliability of an on-demand system such as Innisfil Transit enables residents and visitors to commute to work, get to essential services, or see family and friends, without having to be able to drive or afford to own a car.
