Four weeks after the launch of NGTransit, Mayor Nancy Peckford says ridership has exceeded early expectations.
“We have nearly 700 registered users,” she says. “These are people who have already signed up, who are using the service, they expect to use the service, they’re curious about the service, and that’s certainly exceeded what we had thought might materialize for the first month.”
The service officially launched January 15th, offering on-demand rides anywhere within North Grenville from 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM most days, and from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM Sundays.
Peckford says the first month of operation has seen some “hiccups,” like rare instances of rides “disappearing” in the Blaise ride booking app.
“Thankfully, the Blaise app is run by a cracker-jack engineering team,” she adds, “so we’ve been going back to them and saying, ‘okay, it seems like we may have an issue here.’”
She also says one message the municipality has heard loud and clear from riders is that they want service hours extended to 10:00 PM and beyond, and her team is actively looking into it.
“That would really recognize youth service workers who, maybe, their shift doesn’t end until 10:00, [or] a couple out to a restaurant,” Peckford explains. “Maybe they don’t want to drink and drive going home, and they opt to use the bus instead.”
Peckford says updates and changes coming to the service will be posted to the North Grenville website, social media pages, and included in half-page ads in local newspapers.