OC Transpo is cancelling SMS notifications for bus trip cancellations starting on Thursday, May 8.
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OC Transpo is ending SMS notifications for bus trip cancellations starting on Thursday, a move being criticized by transit advocates.
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SMS and email alerts are input manually whenever a bus trip is cancelled, OC Transpo said in a statement. The process can be time-consuming and sometimes incomplete or inaccurate.
The new system, which will automate notifications of cancelled bus trips through the Transit app, aims to provide more accurate information, OC Transpo says. Bus users can sign up for push alerts to get notified of any changes to their trips.
Transit users can also text their bus stop number to 560560 to receive cancellation notices.
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SMS and email alerts for detours and rail service disruptions will not be affected by the changes, OC Transpo said.
“OC Transpo will continue to work on improving real time information for customers and further upgrades are planned,” director of transit customer systems and planning Pat Scrimgeour said in a statement. 
Public transit advocates say thousands will be affected by the changes. According to data from OC Transpo, there were 3,500 subscribers to OC Transpo’s SMS and email alerts service and around 35,000 Transit app users in 2024.
The change will affect marginalized groups like the elderly, youth who don’t have smartphones and people with disabilities, said software developer Justin Kelly of Occasional Transportation, an online tool introduced in 2019 to help transit users track LRT disruptions. The move will affect those who do not have the time nor resources to organize and speak up, he said.
OC Transpo is facing a deficit while at the same time providing a service to a dwindling number of users, he said.
“Sending text messages isn’t cheap, and (OC Transpo is) basically looking at the services that they render,” Kelly said an interview on Tuesday.
Kelly contends that the Transit app is notoriously unreliable and often shows cancelled buses minutes after they were supposed to show up or have “magically teleported” to a location 30 minutes away.
“People are still talking about teleporting buses and ghost buses, which have been a problem since I came to Ottawa 20 years ago,” Kelly said.
“People like the SMS system more because when (OC Transpo says a bus) is cancelled, it’s logging in their phone.”
The cancelled and ghost buses, along with delayed cancellation alerts on the Transit app, have made people wary of OC Transpo, said Kelly, who called it the “transit death cycle.” People stop using public transportation because it’s not serving the destinations where people need to go, which causes OC Transpo to scale back service, he said.
According to a 2024 Trends Report published by OC Transpo, only 8.5 per cent of Ottawa residents took public transit in 2022 compared with 14.2 per cent in 2011. In the same time period there was an increase in people who drove: from 53.4 per cent in 2011 to 54.2 per cent in 2022.
Governments have to pay more to induce demand for transit, Kelly argues. Once people use transit because it serves their needs, then it becomes a virtuous cycle, he said.
“When you need to go to a doctor’s appointment and have to leave two hours early because the bus may not show up for an hour or more, then you have to plan your life with these huge buffers. All of this adds up to people migrating away to cars, which they did during COVID,” he said.
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