A bus built to carry about 30 passengers rolled into Otter Point one morning with just a handful of people aboard. For Juan de Fuca Electoral Area director Al Wickheim, the scene captured a bigger problem with rural transit: The question may not be whether communities need more buses, but whether they need a different kind of bus service. Speaking with CFAX 1070, Wickheim recalled riding the first Otter Point bus of the morning. “There was a total I think of five at one point on the bus,” he said. A full-sized bus travelling through a sparsely populated community can be difficult to justify when demand is spread out. But residents still need to get to work, appointments, shopping and connections with the broader transit network. Wickheim believes rural residents could be better served by smaller vehicles and more flexible service. “People would be happy with a bus every couple of hours, if it provided more near-home pickups and drop-offs,” he said. That could mean a transit system that responds to riders rather than asking riders to organize their day around a fixed route. BC Transit has been testing that idea elsewhere in B.C. A bus that comes when you need it BC Transit director of corporate and strategic planning Matthew Boyd describes OnDemand transit as another option in the public-transit toolbox. “Instead of that route that’s going up and down the same corridor all day, you essentially have a zone where a bus exists,” Boyd explained. “A member of the public can use their phone or call in and book that trip and the bus will come to pick them up.” The concept may sound familiar to anyone who has used a ride-hailing service such as Uber. But unlike a private ride, OnDemand remains public transit. Riders pay regular transit fares, can share the vehicle with other passengers and can connect with the wider transit network. “It is still a public transit bus and you’re sharing that service with other people,” Boyd said. The difference is that the route is shaped by demand. Kelowna pilot offers a glimpse That model was put to the test in Kelowna’s Crawford neighbourhood in 2024. BC Transit chose Crawford because it is geographically isolated and its conventional fixed-route service was one of the system’s poorest performers. Earlier attempts to improve ridership through route and scheduling changes had not produced significant results. “On-Demand provided a new tool to attempt to influence performance and improve customer satisfaction,” Kelowna Transit and Programs Manager Mike Kittmer said. Information presented by BC Transit during a 2025 Union of B.C. Municipalities workshop showed ridership on the Crawford pilot nearly doubled compared with the fixed-route service it replaced. Average wait times were about nine minutes. Kittmer said customer satisfaction has remained high, with riders giving the service a rating of 4.8 out of 5 so far this year. There’s also a psychological difference, he said. A fixed route that arrives once an hour may technically provide regular service, but a rider can feel as though they have fewer options. With OnDemand, trips can be booked throughout the day. BC Transit says that flexibility has been one of the strongest features of the pilot. “We found that customers really enjoy the sense of freedom and convenience of booking that service,” Boyd said. “When you’re replacing an infrequent fixed-route service with an OnDemand service, customers really appreciate not having to wait 60 minutes for a trip and instead being able to book it very, very quickly.” It isn’t a replacement for the bus BC Transit is clear that OnDemand isn’t designed to replace conventional transit everywhere. Where large numbers of people travel along the same corridors, fixed routes remain the most efficient way to move them. But rural communities can present a different challenge. People may need transit just as much as those in urban areas, while their destinations and travel times are more spread out. Sending a large bus along a fixed route can mean operating substantial amounts of service with relatively few passengers. That’s where a smaller, demand-responsive vehicle may make more sense. “A healthy transit system has a range of different options that are available,” Boyd said. “For some communities that big bus, high-capacity double-decker fixed route is perfect. Whereas other smaller communities, it’s worth exploring whether a smaller bus and an OnDemand type service is more appropriate for the needs of those communities.” Could it work in Greater Victoria? That question has not been answered yet. BC Transit is still finalizing the Victoria Regional Transit Plan. Any move toward OnDemand service would require further work with local governments, First Nations and transit users. But the issues being raised in East Sooke, Otter Point and Highlands are similar to those in communities where BC Transit has been testing the model. “Some of those smaller communities would be potentially ideal candidates for an OnDemand type service,” Boyd said. For Wickheim, the appeal is straightforward: Give rural residents a service that comes closer to where they live without sending a large bus through the community when there may be few passengers to pick up. That doesn’t necessarily mean fewer transit options. It could mean designing those options differently. The right bus for the right place Greater Victoria’s transit conversation is often framed around what comes next: more buses, more frequent service and eventually higher-capacity transit. Those investments will be important in growing urban areas. But the region also has communities where population is lower, distances are longer and demand is harder to predict. For those areas, the best transit solution may not be a bigger bus running more often. It may be a smaller bus that comes when someone actually needs it. BC Transit’s experiments in other B.C. communities suggest the idea is worth testing. Now the question for Greater Victoria is whether on-demand transit belongs in its own toolbox, and which communities might be the right fit.
