Northern Light
Superstar
Good to see 2 routes (Burnhamthorpe, and Mavis) both hit the symbolic mark of better than 15M mid-day service on weekdays.
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miWay Transit
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
Good to see 2 routes (Burnhamthorpe, and Mavis) both hit the symbolic mark of better than 15M mid-day service on weekdays.
drum118
Superstar
lastcommodore
New Member
45 mil on Dundas BRT and Lakeshore BRT... is this allocation new? I feel like i havent heard of either projects in years.
doady
Senior Member
Artics on Britannia on weekends now, lol. Perhaps MiWay should buy some double articulated buses so they can run hourly service there instead of half hour. Those speed bumps on Lisgar are very good for regular artics, they'll be even better for double artics.
Good to see you acknowledge that the 15 minutes threshold is symbolic since it makes no practical difference other than to alleviate overcrowding.
Toffy
Active Member
If anyone is curious about how transit service levels have evolved at the City I have included a service summary which also includes Brampton Transit for comparisons sake. There are 3 different sheets which provide 3 different timeline views.
Saturday and Sunday vehicle hours are above pre-pandemic levels, however weekday vehicle hours remain below pre-pandemic levels by 4.7% (approx. 63K annual hours). Although vehicle hours are only down 4.7% on weekdays, due to longer layover times to improve operator workplace wellbeing and schedule reliability weekday in-service hours are down 8.57% as compared to pre-pandemic levels. Coupled with longer running times the amount of trips provided during weekdays is down 19.11% over pre-pandemic levels. MiWay still has a long way to go in rebuilding weekday service levels on a number of routes.
Although the City's 2026 budget does not include any service hour growth, the City previously approved 234K additional annual service hours over the course of 2024 (114K) and 2025 (120k). As of January 2026 the city has implemented only 166K of the 234K additional hours, meaning there is still just under 70K hours to implement. So don't let the budget drown your hopes for improved transit services over the course of this year.
Also to put down the myth that the City doesn't have enough buses to expand rush hour service further let's take a look at vehicle requirements during the two peak periods.
As of January 2026 there are 356 buses required for AM peak service out of a fleet of 500 buses, that represents a whopping 40% spare ratio. In the PM peak 363 buses are required for service, leaving a 37.7% spare ratio.
With a reasonable 25% spare ratio that would allow MiWay to field 400 buses at once. Coupled with vehicle savings from the eventual opening of the Hurontario LRT the City still has quite a bit of runway to add additional service hours during the rush hour periods. If the City were to expand overnight service that too provides additional room for a larger fleet, we have seen the TTC take this step with the streetcar due to space limitations at the yard.
Saturday and Sunday vehicle hours are above pre-pandemic levels, however weekday vehicle hours remain below pre-pandemic levels by 4.7% (approx. 63K annual hours). Although vehicle hours are only down 4.7% on weekdays, due to longer layover times to improve operator workplace wellbeing and schedule reliability weekday in-service hours are down 8.57% as compared to pre-pandemic levels. Coupled with longer running times the amount of trips provided during weekdays is down 19.11% over pre-pandemic levels. MiWay still has a long way to go in rebuilding weekday service levels on a number of routes.
Although the City's 2026 budget does not include any service hour growth, the City previously approved 234K additional annual service hours over the course of 2024 (114K) and 2025 (120k). As of January 2026 the city has implemented only 166K of the 234K additional hours, meaning there is still just under 70K hours to implement. So don't let the budget drown your hopes for improved transit services over the course of this year.
Also to put down the myth that the City doesn't have enough buses to expand rush hour service further let's take a look at vehicle requirements during the two peak periods.
As of January 2026 there are 356 buses required for AM peak service out of a fleet of 500 buses, that represents a whopping 40% spare ratio. In the PM peak 363 buses are required for service, leaving a 37.7% spare ratio.
With a reasonable 25% spare ratio that would allow MiWay to field 400 buses at once. Coupled with vehicle savings from the eventual opening of the Hurontario LRT the City still has quite a bit of runway to add additional service hours during the rush hour periods. If the City were to expand overnight service that too provides additional room for a larger fleet, we have seen the TTC take this step with the streetcar due to space limitations at the yard.
Northern Light
Superstar
That is simply an excellent post! No other description would be as apt. Ty.
drum118
Superstar
A few things: Miway has 503 buses on the books, but a number of them are in the deadline or waiting parts and this will drop your percentage for spare buses.
I have been seeing 10-20 minutes layover for a number of major bus routes with 20 being too long and in some cases drivers are doing a stop and go at the end in place of layover time
Runtime is an issue that various from route to route that service is at a snail pace while others are seeing over the speed limited. Runtime has been a problem for decades caused by drivers themselves, not traffic. At various time of the day, ridership has an effect on the runtime especially when buses are behind schedule. Traffic on various routes at various locations have an effect on runtime.
Service on Hurontario has been effected by the construction of the LRT the past few year and the 2 will be effected this year south of the QEW as the ROW is built with only single lane of traffic until all the poles are remove from the curb lane that was supposed to happen 2+ years ago. Depending on how much trackwork has to be replace north of Eglinton, it will have an impact on routes 17 and 103.
Until 2028-2030, none of the Hurontario buses will be moved to other routes until the LRT is in service. Some buses will remain on Hurontario with longer headway to service the current stops that will be in between the LRT stops. Currently there is no talks as to what the headway will be on opening day. I would recommended that the Hurontario bus stay on Hurontario to reduced the pressure on CCTT. The third garage maybe ready by 2030.
The current plan that I know of at this time will see some buses move from Central to the third garage when it open as well from Malton to allow those garages to be upgrade for the new technology in phases. It will have an impact on future growth of buses for the fleet to offer 10-15 minute service on major routes 7 days a week with maximum of 30 minutes 7 days a week though a few may see longer headway..
Ridership has fail to keep pace with city growth for the last 15 years as the quality of service hasn't been there to encourage increase of ridership as well taking too long to get from X to Y. Because of the quality of service and early end of service, some industrial routes have seen a drop in ridership as riders have gone out and got a car so they can get to/from work than go to work ahead of schedule or have to wait hours for service to start. I have heard close to 15 years that riders on route 5 were forced spend hours until service started if they worked overtime or their shift ended after service stop. Today service has increase to 30 minutes for weekdays up from 20 minutes off peak with 15 minutes in place of 10 minutes in a shorter peak time using 40 footer that are at peak to crush load in place of 60 footers.
doady
Senior Member
Somehow, I don't think the 6-minute service is the reason for the drop in ridership along Derry Road. And it's probably not the reason for the recent ridership losses for Brampton Transit and TTC either.
As for your claim that "ridership has fail to keep pace with city growth for the last 15 years", the numbers I got are 44 riders per capita in 2008 and 58 riders per capita in 2023. You got different numbers for us?
As for your claim that "ridership has fail to keep pace with city growth for the last 15 years", the numbers I got are 44 riders per capita in 2008 and 58 riders per capita in 2023. You got different numbers for us?
drum118
Superstar
I cannot speak to Derry as I don't use it nor looked at it for decades.
2005 model split was 13% and was to be 25% by 2025.let alone 2030 according to the city.
2025 ridership was 59 million.........If 20% for 750000 is 1500000 x 2 trips/day, we get 300000 riders per day that will give us 109.5 million ridership for the year. Since most people don't use transit 7 days a week, we could be looking at 90-100 ridership compared to where we are today. Even using 700000, ridership should be higher.
According to Europe bus ratio of 1,6 per 1000, Mississauga should have a bus fleet of 1200 buses and far more than the 503 we have today
Do the math one way or another and we are well below where we should be.
The city is great talking about going green and reduced the reliance on the car, yet it cannot provide the transit system to do it.
doady
Senior Member
So this is not about ridership growth falling behind population growth the past 15 years, it's actually about ridership not meeting the City goal of doubling transit mode share since 2005?
It is not even something that MiWay can use as a measure of performance. Mode share is only for commutes to work and it also includes a large number of GO Transit riders. These numbers come every 5 years from the census. 15.8% of commuters residing in Mississauga took transit to work in 2006. This rose to 18.1% in 2016. I am not sure why you assume it hasn't changed since 2005.
That 59 million figure is actually for 2023 and it is not even the amount of riders, it is boardings, so it not only includes non-commute trips but also transfers. Excluding transfers, the ridership was actually 45 milllion. Even among these 45 million riders, you don't know who is Mississauga resident, who is from Brampton or Toronto. It cannot be used to calculate the % of commuters from Mississauga taking transit, even if no Mississauga residents took GO.
I am not sure why you feel the need to take 59 million boardings completely out of context and ignore that the system had only 40 million boardings in 2005. 109.5 million would be approaching the total boardings for the entire New Jersey Transit bus network. Mississauga's transit system is already bad enough, do we really need to pretend that the ridership has fallen or remained unchanged since 2005? To build upon existing success, you have to acknowledge success first. If you try to start from 2005, you will only end up in 2006.
It is not even something that MiWay can use as a measure of performance. Mode share is only for commutes to work and it also includes a large number of GO Transit riders. These numbers come every 5 years from the census. 15.8% of commuters residing in Mississauga took transit to work in 2006. This rose to 18.1% in 2016. I am not sure why you assume it hasn't changed since 2005.
That 59 million figure is actually for 2023 and it is not even the amount of riders, it is boardings, so it not only includes non-commute trips but also transfers. Excluding transfers, the ridership was actually 45 milllion. Even among these 45 million riders, you don't know who is Mississauga resident, who is from Brampton or Toronto. It cannot be used to calculate the % of commuters from Mississauga taking transit, even if no Mississauga residents took GO.
I am not sure why you feel the need to take 59 million boardings completely out of context and ignore that the system had only 40 million boardings in 2005. 109.5 million would be approaching the total boardings for the entire New Jersey Transit bus network. Mississauga's transit system is already bad enough, do we really need to pretend that the ridership has fallen or remained unchanged since 2005? To build upon existing success, you have to acknowledge success first. If you try to start from 2005, you will only end up in 2006.
SR95
New Member
Aspiring to European standards is not realistic drum ... it ignores so much context about land use designations, density, and the built environment that enables so much of their transit success, nevermind the fact that public services in general across the pond are at a much higher quality because they're much better funded ... because people get taxed much more than over here. I'd be curious to see comparisons in a canadian context. How does mississauga's transit system & ridership compare to brampton's, for example? And if they're doing anything better, can we replicate that?