Coun. Tim Tierney is calling for increased transparency measures at OC Transpo after
the transit authority cancelled
nearly 800 trips in a single day in early January.
OC Transpo acting general manager Troy Charter sent a memo to council last week acknowledging its
bus service hasn’t been up to standards
, with an aging diesel bus fleet requiring longer and more complex service, a shortage of mechanics and long-delayed deliveries of e-buses to replace the diesel fleet.
OC Transpo confirmed this week that it cancelled between 700 and 800 trips in a single day on Monday, Jan. 5.
The spike in undelivered bus trips is due to an increased number of buses requiring maintenance work, Charter said in the memo. “This has resulted in longer wait times for customers during winter weather, unpredictable commute times, and has resulted in an increase in undelivered trips.”
Charter blamed the bus shortage on
the aging fleet of diesel buses
that require “more complex and lengthier maintenance work, meaning buses are out of service for longer periods of time.”
OC Transpo is also facing ongoing challenges to recruit licensed mechanics, “resulting in a backlog of buses needing repairs,” Charter said.
“The challenge of fleet availability to deliver daily service is further exacerbated by traffic congestion and winter weather,” he said.
Tierney, a member of the transit committee, is asking OC Transpo to implement an online “dashboard” that would report how many of its diesel buses are in service. The measure would be similar to the online tool OC Transpo offers to track deliveries of zero-emission e-buses (ZEB).
OC Transpo said weekly updates will be shared with council and the public starting this week, with a new webpage featuring key performance indicators that will be updated weekly.
According to the latest data,
OC Transpo had received 36 e-buses
as of Dec. 23, 2025, and councillors are concerned the transit authority is well behind schedule in its goal to convert to a fully electric fleet by the end of 2027.
Supply chain issues continue to impact the scheduled delivery of e-buses with high demand from municipalities across North America that have similar plans to convert their fleets to hybrid electric buses.
During the last update to the transit committee in November, Charter said OC Transpo had been expecting the delivery of 26 zero-emission e-buses by the end of 2025. At that time, OC Transpo had 30 e-buses in its fleet and that number was expected to increase to 56 by the end of the year.
According to Tierney, only six e-buses have been delivered since July 2025.
In his Jan. 9 memo to councillors, Charter said he expects another 110 e-buses to be delivered by April, with a total of 234 e-buses in the fleet by the end of 2026.
The city ordered 350 e-buses from New Flyer and NovaBus in 2023 following a successful pilot, and senior staff said OC Transpo remains on track to have all 350 e-buses in service by 2027.
“As new buses are onboarded and put into service, this will incrementally improve fleet
availability and service for customers
,” Charter said.
Tierney is calling on staff and council to explore a “Plan B” in the meantime with the acquisition of more diesel buses.
The transit authority purchased 50 new diesel buses that will be arriving in 2026, along with 11 second-hand 40-foot diesel buses from Kitchener-Waterloo that had been expected to join the fleet by the end of 2025.
The 50 new diesel buses will join the fleet by the end of 2026 and into early 2027, according to director for transit bus operations Rami El Feghali. Four of the 11 used buses are now in service and the remaining seven should be road-ready by the end of March.
In April 2025, El Feghali said more than half of OC Transpo’s fleet of diesel buses had already aged beyond their 15-year “useful life” cycle.
El Feghali told councillors the winter months last year had a “profound” impact on the older diesel buses, with dozens removed from service due to retirement or requiring extensive work in the garage.
In an update this week, El Feghali said the total fleet now consists of 738 buses. On an average day, OC Transpo requires about 520 buses for regular service demands.
The number of unavailable buses varies by day depending on the status of maintenance work and repairs, El Feghali said this week. An update on the number of unavailable buses is expected in the coming days, he said.
The e-buses have performed well so far in winter conditions, El Feghali said.
“In colder months, electric bus schedules are made shorter, so the bus drives up to 225 km between charges instead of 235 km in the fall or 250 km in the summer, because winter conditions use more battery power,” he said.
“On weekdays with very heavy snow (31 cm or more), the distance is reduced even more to 200 km, since deep snow limits regenerative braking, which normally helps recharge the bus’s battery while it is moving.
“There are no temperatures where the buses are not put in revenue service due to cold outdoor temperatures.”
Tierney expressed his doubts about the e-bus delivery schedule and the ability of aging diesel buses to keep up
with ridership demands
.
“We’re grossly far behind with e-buses, and OC Transpo is pretty public about that. All transit agencies aren’t getting their e-buses, but it is death by a thousand cuts on our diesel fleet,” Tierney said.
“On the weekend, one caught fire, so it’s gone. One broke down, it’s not coming back,” he said. “Where’s our Plan B?”
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