Roam Transit has purchased three new electric buses as part of its plans to address traffic congestion in Banff National Park and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.Nick Fitzhardinge Photography/Roam Transit
The local transit agency for Alberta’s Bow Valley Region, which includes Banff National Park, has announced the purchase of three new electric buses with funding from Parks Canada.
The purchase is part of Roam Transit’s plans to address traffic congestion in the park and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The buses, which will operate on several routes in and around the park, will make it even easier for visitors to ditch their cars.
The Globe and Mail spoke with Martin Bean, the agency’s chief administrative officer, about the buses and how they fit into Roam Transit’s longer-term plans to change how visitors get to and around the park:
Why is the transit commission embracing electric buses?
In the national parks especially, and throughout the world, we’re seeing a concern about emissions. And for us, moving toward electric buses is a step toward reducing emissions in the area in which we operate.
It creates awareness of using transit as well. And to increase the number of riders that we get on transit, partly through the use of electric buses, causes a decline in the number of cars that are travelling in our area. It reduces environmental impact and congestion.
The Town of Banff has identified congestion as a major problem, both in terms of getting people around the park and also as an environmental issue. How would you assess the transportation problems in the park and how do you see electric buses fitting into that?
I think there’s a growth in transportation opportunities in the park. Currently, we partner with the Town of Banff, the Town of Canmore, Improvement District No. 9, which is everything within the park outside of the Town of Banff, and Parks Canada. We provide transit services both in and between the towns and also out to many of the trailheads, campgrounds and other visitor sites that people are travelling to.
This year, we’re also creating better synergies between our Banff-to-Lake-Louise service and the shuttle service that Parks Canada operates from there to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake. There is significant collaboration between different parties to make sure transportation is easy and seamless.
Roam Transit's three electric buses will operate on several routes in and around Banff National Park and will make it even easier for visitors to ditch their cars.Nick Fitzhardinge Photography/Roam Transit
Has the transit commission set targets for your emissions reduction or targets around environmental stewardship, and how do you measure your success in those areas?
Our measurement is, to a great degree, our ridership, and we continue to grow that and thereby reduce the number of cars that are going out to these areas.
As far as measuring our actual emissions, we’re just starting to analyze what we’ve seen in our first year of operating electric buses and doing a comparison to diesel. Now that we’ve got a year under our belt, we expect to have that data out in the next couple of months to do a more deep comparison. In general, the more we can get people out of cars and onto buses and primarily e-buses going forward, that will really help to achieve those targets.
What is next in terms of increasing transit service in the park?
For this summer, we will increase our frequency on the number of routes and also be adding more electric buses on the routes. And by early 2023, we will have 10 electric buses in our fleet and that is about 30 per cent electric. So our goal is to continue with all of our new purchases to choose electric or other zero-emission buses, depending on what we see in technology over the next number of years. We would use that to both access different destinations and also increase the frequency of service on the current routes that we operate.
What do you think holds visitors back from choosing public transit over private vehicles and how do you plan to move the needle on that?
I think holding people back is just the convenience of having a private vehicle and changing behaviour.
We’re working on making the switch as seamless as possible through increased frequency, increased connections between all services so that somebody doesn’t really have to think about the actual time they’re going to have to spend getting on transit. They can just go out knowing that there’s a bus coming in the next 20 minutes and they can connect throughout the park. A lot of it, I think, is education and just changing the mindset of people to use transit and also getting people to understand the benefits of transit, not having the stress of driving, not having to circle while you’re trying to find parking spots. So you can just relax and enjoy your day.
Is the push to increase public transit in the park starting to have an impact?
Even if we go back to before the pandemic in 2015, we had seven buses, and we’ve grown to a fleet of 30. We’ve gone from ridership under 500,000 up to over 1.5 million in 2019. In 2021, we were just under 700,000, and we’re starting to see that growth come back. I think our efforts are paying off, and with the safety initiatives we put in place through the pandemic, we were able to maintain service, and now we’re building up to the numbers of 2019 and beyond.
One of the keys has been the collaboration of our municipal partners and the support of both federal and provincial governments in promoting transit. It has been going well and we’ve had grant opportunities that have allowed us to purchase buses and create routes, and be able to have the growth that we see which benefits everyone.
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