London Transit Commission looks to boost ridership after 12.6% drop

Passengers disembark a London Transit bus on Western Road (CTV News file image)

Ridership on London Transit remains well below 2025 levels, a lingering financial impact from the cap on international students enrolled at Fanshawe College and Western University.

On Monday, the London Transit Commission (LTC) received an update showing that during the first five months of this year, ridership on city buses was 12.6 per cent lower than during the same period last year.

The financial impact on the LTC’s budget has been even greater than predicted.

A staff report reads, “the extent to which the tuition pass program ridership was impacted was underestimated, resulting in an unfavourable ridership performance against budget.”

Coun. Sam Trosow, who sits on the Commission, proposed a pair of initiatives that aim to get more people on the bus.

• Explore the potential of a transit pass for employees of large institutions (Western University, Fanshawe College, local hospitals) and local employers (large private businesses, BIAs) if it would provide a net financial benefit to the LTC
• Park-and-ride bus service to shuttle people from large parking lots (possibly shopping malls or municipal lots) to major events like Rock the Park, Sunfest, Ribfest, and London Knights games

“In light of the report that we received, that ridership was down, I thought it was something that the members of this board should turn their attention to,” Trosow explained.

Kelly Paleczny, general manager of London Transit cautioned that previous attempts to initiate similar programs failed to garner sufficient interest from large employers, and malls had been hesitant to let their lots be utilized by non-customers.

Trosow stressed that ridership boosting initiatives should only be pursued if they benefit the bottom line, “I think we’ll see from staff a report that lets us know what’s possible, what makes good financial sense, because we wouldn’t want to do it unless we saw net benefit.”

He also suggested that worsening traffic around Western University might change perspectives on a buss pass for faculty and staff.

“There might be some resistance, but I also think the traffic coming in and out of campus during rush hour, it’s just intolerable,” Trosow said.

The staff report states, “Increasing public transit ridership can be achieved through a number of measures, including but not limited to service improvements, enhanced user experience, and affordability measures, all of which require increased investment.”

“The number one thing. I think, that would help more people take the bus and more people be happy with the service is more busses, more coverage and more service,” said Coun. Skylar Franke, who chairs the LTC. “And that, of course, is a financial choice that council can make.”

Trosow added, “Our position has to be that one of the ways to mitigate and ameliorate traffic is to get more people onto the bus.”

Commissioners voted to support Trosow’s motion.

They also backed a one-year pilot program with an online company called Transit App to provide real-time and detour information for customers at an annual cost of $158,587.

The pay-wall free mobile application can provide real-time trip planning, detour visualization, dynamic alerts and up to 4 push notifications per year.

Over multiple years, riders expressed a desire for timely travel information on an App, rather than on the LTC website.

Franke explained, “They would like to have one up-to-date app that they can use to see where the busses are, if they’re going to be on time, if they’re detoured, So I think it’s wise for us to do one year pilot, see how it’s working, see if people like it.”

The staff report notes, “It should be noted that every transit system in Canada that has tuition pass programs in place has experienced similar declines in ridership in 2025, with ridership declines ranging between 5 per cent and 25 per cent.”

Staff will report back to the commission about the strategies to boost ridership in October.