«

»

Print this Post

Barrie’s Transit On Demand Falls Flat

January 2025

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Last summer, Barrie Transit decided to implement a Transit on Demand service for their lower volume routes. The regularly scheduled routes were eliminated, with passengers booking a ride when they need one, either by using an App or calling a phone number. You will either be booked for a specific time, or told that there will be a bus in he area to pick up other passengers and what time it will arrives.

I don’t take public transit very often , but when I need it, it’s a great service to have available. One day, my car was in the auto shop for repairs. Rather than take a $28 cab ride, I decided to take advantage of my city’s public transport. I had used the Transit on Demand service before and it was a good experience. I don’t have the App on my phone, and don’t want it, just for the few times that I will use it. I already have a bunch of Apps that came preloaded on my phone that I don’t use or need, so I don’t want anymore. Apparently, that is the wrong way to think, as Barrie Transit apparently wants you to pretty much use their App exclusively.

As I did the last time I used the Transit on Demand, I called the phone number provided, but unlike the last time, I couldn’t get to a live person, no matter how many times I pressed zero to try to get out of the automated system. I kept getting prompted for my stop number. Well, as I don’t take public transport very often , I didn’t know my stop number. The best that I was able to do was get their voicemail. Now, I didn’t really want to leave a message, as I figured that if they weren’t there right now to answer the phone, how long would it be before they heard the message and called me back. I understand that the bus doesn’t come two seconds after you book it, but I wanted to get my car back so that I could go visit my widowed mother for the afternoon, thus, I didn’t want to wait too long to be on my way.

I next called the Service Barrie phone number no spoke to a very nice young lady, who tried to get a hold of the Barrie Transit people, without success. I finally did leave a message for the transit folks to call me back, but after not heading back from them for around ten minutes, I decided to make the five minute walk to my stop, so that I could get the stop number. I hadn’t been looking forward to that as I didn’t want to stand out in the cold while I waited for the bus to arrive. As t turned out, it wasn’t as cold as I thought it going to be. We had just come out of a few days of temperatures in the minus double digits.

Once at the stop, I called the phone number and entered the stop number that was posted on the sign, only to have the automated voice tell me that it was an invalid number and to try again. Figuring that maybe I entered the wrong number, I entered it gain, but got the same number.

After this, I tried calling both Barrie Transit and Service Barrie, but had no luck speaking to a live person. Around this time, I saw a bus off I the distance and thought that the problem was solved. Yeah, no! From here, things really got ridiculous.

I got on board the bus and the driver asked for my name. After being told by the driver that she couldn’t take me as my name wasn’t on the list of people she was supposed to pick up. She advised me that it was necessary for liability reasons. I didn’t really understand this, as I failed to see how the liability issues had changed from being on a regular bus, but I responded by asking if she had a pen, and offered to write my name on the list. Problem solved, right? Well, no. The driver advised me that it was a computer based system. I asked if she had access to the computer to add me that way, but the answer was also “No.”

At this point she told me to get off the bus, as she had other passengers and needed to get going. I told that I wasn’t going anywhere until she either booked me on the bus or called a supervisor. I also apologized to the two women already on the bus for holding them up, to which one responded that she completely understood. Many people had already been lodging complaints regarding Transit on Demand, and she was one of them.

A supervisor did arrive shortly afterwards, and he too told me that I had to leave the bus. Once again, I refused until he solved this problem, telling him to call the police if he didn’t like it. Now, a little about this supervisor: after introducing myself, he refused to tell me his name. His picture ID badge was turned around, so I couldn’t read it. Mr. Supervisor was wearing a safety vest that said “Barrie Transit” and “Supervisor” on it, but apparently he doesn’t work for Barrie Transit. He is essentially a contactor, so he proved to be most unhelpful. After demonstrating to him that the stop code wouldn’t work when I tried to book a ride using the phone system, he was unable to tell me what was the correct number to enter, if the stop number wasn’t the right one. Well, Mr. Unhelpful Supervisor had no idea what number I should be entering in order to book a ride.

I didn’t say it to Mr. Unhelpful Supervisor, but I wanted to say, “Well, then why are you here?”

Finally, after around 30 minutes, the Transit of Demand people finally called be back. This lady was finally able to tell me that it was indeed the stop number that you enter to book a ride, but she theorized that it was likely a glitch in the system that was preventing me from booking a ride. I made a joke that it’s not very helpful having a “transit on demand” service if you can’t “demand transit” when you need it. The lady on the phone, somewhat condescendingly, told me that the bus immediately when you book it, to which I responded that I was aware of that, but my comment was a joke; a play on words. Apparently it fell flat.

Despite my bad joke, she manually booked me on the next bus, which she advised was coming in 5 minutes, so I agreed to get off the bus and wait for the next one.

My bus finally arrived and I got on and was at long last, on my way. I spoke with the bus driver and he advised me that they had many people complaining about the Transit on Demand service. He also advised me that my route was scheduled to be returned to a scheduled bus route in the near future.

Now, I’ve worked in jobs that require strict adherence to policies and procedures is essential (try writing a search warrant!), but there are also situations where common sense and discretion are not only permitted, they are necessary to help things run smoothly.

This is also another reason why for many people, myself included, using our own cars is preferable to public transport. You need to do much better than this Barrie Transit.

About the author

Bruce Forsyth

Bruce Forsyth served in the Royal Canadian Navy Reserve for 13 years (1987-2000). He served with units in Toronto, Hamilton & Windsor and worked or trained at CFB Esquimalt, CFB Halifax, CFB Petawawa, CFB Kingston, CFB Toronto, Camp Borden, The Burwash Training Area and LFCA Training Centre Meaford.

Permanent link to this article: https://militarybruce.com/barrie-transit/

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>