It’s no secret that bedroom communities of large urban centres face multiple challenges in providing citizens with reliable and convenient public transportation. Spruce Grove, Alberta is a rapidly growing community of 38,000 located just 11 kilometres west of Edmonton. Officials found it exceedingly difficult to fund a local transit service that offered both robust mobility within the city and the ability to get riders to and from Edmonton efficiently.

The Growing City Needed a Reliable Transit System

Spruce Grove launched a traditional local transit service in 2019, but the route couldn’t offer riders bus stops within a reasonable walking distance of many of the city’s rapidly developing neighbourhoods. This is a community that has grown from 33,640 people in 2016 to 37,645 in 2021, so it desperately needed another transit solution. They found it with the help of Pacific Western Transportation.

The city converted the fixed-route local service to on demand on May 3, 2021, and it never looked back. After the switch, Spruce Grove Transit has seen tremendous growth in ridership, shared rides and customer satisfaction.

• Ridership has increased at an average rate of 15.7% per month for the past 12 months.
• Shared rides have increased from approximately 15% at the start of the service to over 42% at present, regularly exceeding 50% on busier days.
• Usage patterns show that the switch to on demand was both warranted and desirable for customers at a variety of times – even during off-peak hours.
• Customer satisfaction has remained consistently high, with an average ride rating of 4.93 out of five for the over 11,000 total trips delivered.
• In June 2022, Spruce Grove’s on demand transit service delivered an impressive 97.8% on-time performance and an average time spent in-bus of 8.6 minutes.

The Community of Spruce Grove has Fully Embraced the Switch to On Demand Transit

The numbers don’t lie. Spruce Grove’s on demand transit service continues to grow steadily after more than a full year of operating. In May 2021, just 220 riders used the service, but just one year later, that number expanded to a whopping 1,282. June 2022 featured another big increase, as 1,469 riders took advantage of the groundbreaking transportation service.

The city’s on demand transit system uses technology owned by Pacific Western Transportation and a mobile app called Pick-Up On-Demand – powered by RideCo. Customers can book trips in advance and on demand using the mobile app, a web portal and over the phone.

Pacific Western Transportation makes transitioning from a fixed-route local service to demand-based incredibly easy. PWT provides all call-taking and reservation services for the system using its Calgary-based call centre to minimize the expense associated with dial-in trip bookings.

The community of Spruce Grove made the switch just over a year ago, and with the help of Pacific Western Transportation, the On Demand transit service has been a major success story – with incredible growth in ridership and excellent customer satisfaction.