Staff Report #11
April 29, 2020
To All Commissioners
Re: Financial Update – Specialized Transit Services – Operating Budget – March 31, 2020
Recommendation
That the report be NOTED and FILED.
Background
Set out in the table below is the Statement of Operations for Specialized Transit Services for the three month period ending March 31, 2020. The statement sets out actual to budget performance for the period.
London Transit Commission
Statement of Operations – Specialized Transit Services
Three Months Ending March 31, 2020
(000’s omitted)
| Description | Actual | Budget | Amount Better (Worse) | Percent Better (Worse) | |
| Revenue | |||||
| Transportation | $ 155.7 | $ 156.7 | $ (31.0) | (16.6)% | |
| Province – provincial gas tax | 432.4 | 432.4 | – | 0.0 % | |
| City of London | 1,814.7 | 1,814.7 | – | 0.0 % | |
| Total revenue | 2,402.8 | 2,433.8 | (31.0) | (1.3)% | |
| Expenditure | |||||
| Personnel cost | 274.7 | 286.8 | 12.1 | 4.2% | |
| Contract service cost | 2,092.1 | 2,106.1 | 14.0 | 0.7% | |
| All other material expense | 32.3 | 40.9 | 8.6 | 21.1% | |
| Total expenditure | 2,399.1 | 2,433.8 | 34.7 | 1.4% | |
| Net favourable/(unfavourable) | $ 3.7 | $ – | $ 3.7 | 0.2% | |
As indicated, the service has a net favourable operating budget performance to-date of 0.2% or $3,700 with unfavourable revenues ($31,000) and favourable expenditures ($34,700) nearly offsetting each other through the first quarter of the year. Prior to the impact of COVID-19, transportation revenue had been performing to budget (January and February). The unfavourable transportation revenue variance is solely attributed to the decline in ridership as a result of the outbreak. Favourable expenditures are a result of slightly lower personnel costs and contracted services also impacted by the current environment.
Ridership
The table below sets out actual to budget ridership and other performance related measures as well as a comparison to the same period in the previous year.
| Description | Actual | Budget | Variance | % Variance | 2019 Actual | % Variance | |
| Eligible passenger trips | 66,998 | 81,200 | (14,202) | (17.5)% | 73,700 | (9.1)% | |
| Attendant/companion trips | 7,733 | 9,300 | (1,567) | (16.8)% | 8,889 | (13.0)% | |
| Total Trips | 74,731 | 90,500 | (15,769) | (17.4)% | 82,589 | (9.5)% | |
| Average fare | $ 2.083 | $ 2.063 | $ 0.020 | 1.0 % | $ 1.701 | 18.5 % | |
| Service Hours | 38.657 | 38,915 | 259 | 0.7 % | 36,211 | 6.8 % | |
| EPT per service hour | 1.73 | 2.09 | (0.35) | (16.9)% | 2.04 | (14.8)% | |
| Total trips per service hour | 1.93 | 2.33 | (0.39) | (16.9)% | 2.28 | (15.2)% | |
| Total Registrants | 10,947 | 10,691 | 2.4 % | ||||
As noted above, the lower than budget eligible passenger trips is directly related to the COVID-19 outbreak as trips were on budget in January and February with March seeing a sharp decline.
Administration will continue to monitor operating budget performance reporting on same on a monthly basis including providing recommendations as may be appropriate.
Recommended by:
Mike Gregor, Director of Finance
Concurred in by:
Kelly S. Paleczny, General Manager