London Transit Commission Considers Options for Bringing On-Demand Transit to the Innovation Park – London | The Canadian News

The London Transit Commission is currently considering three options for introducing on-demand transit at Innovation Park, an industrial site on the east end of London.

Transit on demand is a new type of transit service that allows customers to book trips online based on pre-set times designed to increase the number of people in each vehicle and also reduce waiting and travel times.

“As a councilor, I am very excited about this. This is something that we can apply across the city and in other underutilized areas, ”said City Councilor and LTC Chairman of the Board, Phil Squire, during an LTC meeting on Wednesday.

Once implemented in Innovation Park, Dennis Kar from Dillon Consulting said that they can then apply the same ideas to future transit-on-demand projects in other areas of London.

Dillon Consulting is the company that was hired to create a report on the best options to go ahead with the plan.

“We meet with employers in the Innovation Park and request data on shift schedules and employees per shift. We use this data to estimate traffic demand by hour of the day and day of the week to determine the optimal time to provide on-demand service, ”said Kar.

Kar presented the LTC with three options for creating an on-demand service during the board meeting on Wednesday night.

The first option required creating an on-demand service from Argyle Mall to Innovation Park, using a vehicle during the morning and evening.

The second option being considered would consider converting the pre-existing route 37 into an on-demand service and combining it with the Innovation Park’s on-demand service. Kar said this option would also extend hours of operation for those using Route 37.

Finally, the third option would expand Route 30 to a totally on-demand zone, including the Innovation Park and the employment area along Route 37.

Kar said options one and two require the least amount of resources and have the greatest potential to accommodate travel requests, while option three provides the highest level of convincing, but it would be difficult to accommodate all travel requests without further ado. means.

In analyzing who would operate the new transit plan, Kar presented three options: LTC vehicles and drivers, hiring a private transit company, and the final option is hiring a taxi company to service the trip instead of a fixed fee. per hour. .

Breaking down the three transit options, Kar said London Transit is the easiest to operate, while outsourcing would likely cost the least, and option three would only be profitable if passenger demand was low and the program was difficult to implement.

The next step is for the LTC to choose a plan and create a pilot service to test the plan.

LTC staff will review all options before proceeding further.

LTC staff say that if all goes well, they will be able to put a plan in place by the end of February 2022.