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And while the data show Transpo is delivering on aspects of its promises for the LRT era – namely, improving bus service reliability – it also reveals that a total of 19,293 trips were still cancelled between the opening of the Confederation Line and Jan. 16.

Scrimgeour said Transpo will always aim to deliver 100 per cent of scheduled trips, while noting they’ll never achieve this.

“We’re running 8,700 trips a day (during the work week). Something is going to hold up one, two, five, 10, 40 of them, all the time,” he said. “Don’t stop ’til you get to 100, but we have noticed that the feedback we get from customers generally is: service is ok when you’re at 98 per cent. Service is the worst we can possibly imagine, you’re running a horrible system, when you’re at 96 per cent.”

The most common cause for a cancellation is traffic, Scrimgeour said. Mechanical issues and emergencies involving customers or drivers are also at the top of the list. On routes with more frequent service, Scrimgeour suggested customers shouldn’t expect a total end to cancellations anytime soon.

“We spend our time in the control centre to make sure we cover the routes that are longer, the routes where there’s only one trip, like a school trip. The first, last trips of the day. And sometimes you have to pull that resource off of another trip to move it over there.”

According to the data, the worst day in terms of the sheer number of bus trip cancellations in the post-LRT period was Oct. 4, a Friday when 586 bus trips were axed and went unfilled, conceivably inconveniencing hundreds if not thousands of transit users. Only a small portion of these cancellations were tweeted out by the OC Transpo Live Twitter account.

Last spring, Scrimgeour told this newspaper that non-communicated cancellations comes from a need to prioritize staff work, particularly during peak periods and on difficult days for transit service.

“On days when there are a high number of trip cancellations, some trips may not be posted to Twitter,” said Scrimgeour. “Our focus is on assisting customers by providing the highest importance updates, such as elevator outages, detours or significant delays to service due to inclement weather, traffic or other issues.”

While the data show the situation has improved, bus cancellations have been fodder for public outrage in recent months. With transit users leaning more heavily than planned on buses — dozens have been redeployed and more purchased to prop up the Confederation Line — a no-show bus can add insult to the injury that is an unreliable LRT commute.