Article content continued

The unifying trend in transportation innovation is moving away from one-size-fits-all solutions — for example, everybody owning their own car — and shifting toward using technology so that each trip uses the most efficient vehicle to minimize congestion and emissions.

Desa said he thinks there are four big factors driving people to reimagine the transportation systems: electric vehicles with different capabilities than traditional gasoline vehicles, cloud-connected vehicles for better fleet management, the looming prospect of autonomous vehicles causing managers to reimagine their systems, and the rise of Uber and Lyft as ride hailing services that serve to demonstrate how technology can make transportation more convenient.

“As soon as you go to areas like the suburbs, like Mississauga, there’s a reason you’ll usually see buses mostly empty, because it’s that mismatch

The town of Innisfil, Ont., has gone all out by subsidizing Uber rides as a replacement for a transit system. He thinks it’s an interesting experiment, Desa said, but said Uber prioritizes speed over efficiency, and most municipalities will want to take a different approach.

“Our view is more of you want to control your own operation, you want to manage it, whether you do it with cars, with vans, with buses, that’s up to you,” he said. “But we give you the tools to do it on your own.”

In Belleville, Buck said the overwhelming majority of riders have a smartphone or a tablet, and people are pressuring the municipality to adopt modern technology. As a backstop, people can also book rides online or through a phone call.

If the initial pilot project goes well, he said, the city would like to rejig the transit system to be more flexible, and less reliant on 40-foot diesel buses driving around in circles.

“(Eventually) this app will allow us to use smaller community-type service and pick people up, bring them out to our larger key service areas,” he said.

“I think this is something that a lot of smaller agencies are going to look into, and look at, because it will give them the opportunity to provide better services with the same resources, or fewer.”