CENTRE WELLINGTON – After over 30 years of service, the Commuter Bus is facing termination due to a lack of ridership.
The service is run through Elliott Coach Lines, a school bus service provider in Wellington County and Waterloo Region.
The Commuter Bus is a bus service that travels from Elora and Fergus to Guelph that gets riders within walking distance to downtown Guelph and the University of Guelph, among other places.
It starts in the morning in Elora, makes its way through Fergus and ends up at the university, with various stops along the way and a return in the afternoon.
Operation manager Shirley Hastie at Elliott Coach Lines in Guelph said ridership is beginning to dwindle more as people that knew about the service have retired from their jobs.
“Typically, we always had most of the enrolment from the University of Guelph,” Hastie explained. “The ridership comes from there, whether its students or professors or people that are just working at the university.
“We have people that have done their whole career and taken the bus for 30 years on that bus.”
From Monday to Friday, anyone can ride for $5 dollars one way. People can also purchase a book of 11 tickets, which gives them one ride for free.
Tickets can be bought from the driver, or people can call the office to order their tickets.
Hastie said they’ve advertised the service a few times, but they’re just we’re not getting any interest from riders.
With the university being closed during the height of COVID-19, the service was also cancelled for quite a while, Hastie explained.
The service was started back up in September when pandemic restrictions were loosening, but Hastie said the bus still isn’t seeing the numbers it used to.
“It’s a good service, it’s just a matter of I don’t think people know about it anymore,” she said. “I think it’s something that with COVID happening I think the ridership went.
“When it was full on it was probably 35 people on the bus and now, we’re getting seven or eight people at tops, that’s just enough to keep that running,” she added.
Hastie said with salary and fuel costs, it’s not feasible to keep the service running for the small amount of money they’re currently getting.
“I think we’re looking at it as if we’re not getting any more ridership by the end of June, its probably going to go with the rest of the school year,” she said of the future of the service.
“We’re going to accommodate for this year because we want to give the riders that are on there, we want to give them the most warning if it’s not going to be something that continues.”
Hastie said with things opening up more now and restrictions loosening, the company will assess the ridership in the spring and if ridership continues to stay down, it will likely stop the service.
“I don’t know if it’s not convenient for people, I’m just not sure why they’re not getting the ridership anymore,” Hastie said.
“I just know that it’s a service that if we can utilize it, make it good for the residents of Elora and Fergus, we certainly want to keep it going.
“It’s convenient and it gets people where they need to be.”
Hastie said the company realized in September it’s going to take some time to see an uptake in ridership, but if it is not seeing the numbers it needs by June, the service will be terminated.
“We’re trying to stir up some ridership because like I say we can’t run it for one or two people.
“But I think we just want to make it more aware to students or for workers who are working in Guelph,” she said. “It’s convenient, you make it happen and make it work.”
For more information visit www.elliottcoach.com or call 519-822-5225.
