12

PASSENGER TRANSPORTATION

Bus Transportation

Canadian Vehicle Survey

Of the 17.3 million vehicles in the Canadian vehicle fleet in 2000, more than 74,000 were buses. Table 12-3 shows bus distribution, vehicle-kilometres and average distance driven by province in 2000. The average bus in Canada was driven 25,500 kilometres, with the highest use taking place in Ontario, Quebec and the Yukon.

Table 12-4 gives an overview of total bus activity for all provinces in 2000. Buses accounted for 1.4 per cent of total fuel purchased and had a fuel efficiency rate of 32.5 litres per 100 kilometres.

Table 12-5 presents bus activity in 2000 by the type of operation. School buses account for nearly 50 per cent of total vehicle-kilometres and over 60 per cent of total passenger-kilometres. Urban transit accounted for over 25 per cent of vehicle-kilometres (urban transit was not asked to record passenger-kilometres data), with charter and other busing accounting for a further 20 per cent. Intercity highway activity was less than 100 million vehicle-kilometres and 1.8 billion passenger-kilometres, approximately five per cent of total bus activity. Bus occupancy rates averaged about 16 passengers per bus, with the highest occupancies found in charter activity, at 33 passengers per bus. Intercity and school buses averaged about 20 passengers per bus.

Table 12-6 compares characteristics of the bus fleet in 2000 by vehicle age. About 38 per cent of the bus fleet in 2000 was under six years of age; these vehicles accounted for about 50 per cent of vehicle-kilometres. Newer vehicles were driven about 65 per cent more on average in 2000 than older buses (33,000 kilometres versus 20,000 kilometres) and were over 16 per cent more fuel-efficient (28.5 litres per 100 kilometres versus 34.2 litres per 100 kilometres).

Driver and Trip Characteristics

Table 12-8 shows estimated bus vehicle-kilometres by day of the week for 2000. Buses, with the relative importance of urban transit and school buses, displayed a strong weekday pattern, with only a little over ten per cent of activity accounted for on weekends.

Table 12-9 presents bus vehicle-kilometres by time of day in 2000. Over 85 per cent of bus travel took place between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.

Table 12-10 shows the distribution of bus vehicle-kilometres by trip length in 2000. More than 60 per cent of total bus trips were at least 80 kilometres in 2000, demonstrating that buses are used mainly for long-haul operations.

Intercity Bus Service

The intercity bus industry is a key component of the Canadian intercity commercial transportation network. The country's extensive road network allows motor coaches to provide a very broad and flexible range of services. Scheduled intercity carriers log more than 150 million kilometres annually and link many towns and villages to urban centres.

Scheduled Intercity Bus Service

Table 12-11 presents the revenues of scheduled intercity bus activities by service line from 1995 to 2000. After a decline from 1996 to 1999, revenues increased by 14.7 per cent in 2000 to $270.5 million. School bus operators accounted for 60 per cent of total revenues of scheduled intercity services in 2000.

The number of passengers who use scheduled intercity services has been declining steadily since the late 1970s. (This decline is due in part to a reclassification of some intercity activities to urban transit services.) As Figure 12-1 shows, ridership in recent years has been stable, ranging from 12 to 14 million passengers a year. After the decline of almost one million passengers in 1999, there was a moderate increase of 568 thousand passengers in 2000.

Charter Operators

Charter bus companies earned two thirds of their revenues by providing charter, sightseeing and shuttle services. Charter bus operators generated a significant portion of their revenues from other services, including nine per cent from intercity services and ten per cent from other passenger bus services.

Revenues for the charter, sightseeing and shuttle bus service lines rose to $449 million in 2000, up 27 per cent from 1999. Table 12-12 shows revenues of the charter bus industry by service line from 1995 to 2000.

As Figure 12-2 shows, bus-kilometres have more than doubled since 1991. In 2000, total bus-kilometres, sightseeing/shuttle and charter combined, stood at 210.8 million kilometres. An increase in annual bus-kilometres is an indication of the expansion in charter service.

Urban Transit

The service line revenues for urban transit were almost $2 billion in 2000, up 7.7 per cent from 1999. Urban transit operators provide the majority of urban transit service, accounting for 97 per cent of total service line revenues in 2000. School bus operators are the next largest provider of transit services, accounting for 2.4 per cent of urban transit service revenues.

Table 12-13 shows revenues of the urban transit sector by type of service from 1995 to 2000.

The number of passengers who use urban transit has increased each year since 1996. In 2000, 1.49 billion passengers used urban transit -- the highest ridership level since 1990. Ridership levels in 2000 increased by 10.4 per cent.

As Figure 12-3 shows, there were 14,313 vehicles in the urban transit fleet in 2000, an increase of almost ten per cent since 1996. With this increase in fleet size, the total distance travelled has also increased, from 716 million vehicle-kilometres in 1996 to 826 million vehicle-kilometres in 2000, an improvement of 15 per cent. Figure 12-4 shows the trends in urban transit by number of passengers and vehicle-kilometres from 1981 to 2000.

Table 12-14 shows the changes in the composition of the urban transit fleet from 1996 to 2000. The biggest change in the fleet composition over this period was the replacement of standard buses by more accessible, low-floor buses.

PASSENGER TRANSPORTATION

Rail Transportation

Bus Transportation

Automobile Transportation

Marine Transportation

Air Transportation