On May 1, 2016 Gertie’s Bus Service transitioned from a three year pilot project to a taxpayer funded public transit system. We are gathering information about ridership – how many, who, how satisfied they are with the service. We are also collecting information about how financially feasible a bus service is on Gabriola, the process of creating a community bus service, and how this service reduces greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the myriad of other unexpected consequences.
Ridership Statistics
In 2016, GERTIE carried 13, 840 passengers. Of those, 3,314 were youths, almost 25% of the ridership. There were 154 dog trips and 296 bicycle trips. We have carried over 46,000 passengers on our regular runs from June 2013 to mid January, 2017.
In 2017, GERTIE carried 15, 640 passengers, a substantial increase over the previous year. Youth ridership declined a bit but there were more child riders. There were 245 dog trips and 316 bicycle trips. We have carried 61,680 passengers on our regular runs from June 2013 to the end of 2017. For a more detailed examination of the statistics, view gertie-stats-2-2017
Gertie riders 2016 chart is a graph which shows the passenger loads monthly over 2016. You can see that our ridership peaks in June and September when there are seasonal riders and tourists as well as youth attending school.
This chart shows the ridership numbers for March to August 2017:
We are maintaining a steady ridership.
