B.C. Transit is adding more late-night buses and increasing service to help students get to their college and university classes.

Overall, 5,000 annual service hours are being added at a yearly cost of $425,000. Money for the first year has come from accumulated surplus funds at B.C. Transit.

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Extended late-night transit begins Sept. 2 on route Nos. 15X Dockyard/UVic, 27 Gordon Head, 28 Majestic and 50 Langford/Downtown. Extra late-night runs will depart downtown at 12:30 a.m., 1 a.m. and 1:30 a.m.

Service to the University of Victoria and both campuses of Camosun College will increase on route Nos. 4 Hillside/UVic, 8 Interurban/Oak Bay and 39 UVic/Royal Roads.

The No. 6 Royal Oak/Esquimalt route is being restructured.

A new route, 6 Downtown/Royal Oak, will go from the downtown core to the Royal Oak Exchange via Quadra Street, while the 15X Dockyard/UVic route will provide direct access to UVic, Camosun’s Lansdowne campus and Royal Jubilee Hospital from Esquimalt.

More than 6,000 people took part in consultations leading up to the changes, said Susan Brice, chairwoman of the Victoria Regional Transit Commission. More late-night runs and more trips to Camosun’s Interurban campus were among the top requests, she said.

“While there are all kinds of areas where people would like increased services, we maybe will have to wait for the next round.”

Brice said she is hopeful the steps being taken will give the public what it wants.

“We figure we can make a difference in the evenings,” she said.

The added service on the UVic and Camosun routes is aimed at dealing with the issue of “pass-ups” — people left standing at stops because buses are full, Brice said.

“We’ve been, in the last two Septembers, really trying to use a number of initiatives.”

On the UVic runs, for example, transit staff have devised a system where a couple of buses are earmarked for use at key times.

“As soon as they’re notified that there are pass-ups occurring, they feed those into the system in an attempt to make sure that if students are passed up, that there’s another bus coming quickly,” Brice said.

Anything that addresses transit issues faced by students is a step in the right direction, said Kayleigh Erickson, who chairs the UVic Students’ Society.

“We have so many students using transit, we have obviously had problems with pass-ups and with needing more buses,” she said.

“I think it’s wonderful, of course, any time that they put more money into helping our students at university.”

jwbell@timescolonist.com