Staff Report #9
August 27, 2025
To All Commissioners
Re: Financial Update – Specialized Transit Services – Operating Budget – July 31, 2025
Recommendation
That the report be RECEIVED for information.
Background
Set out in the table below is the Statement of Operations for Specialized Transit Services for the seven-month period ending July 31, 2025. The statement sets out actual to budget performance for the period.
London Transit Commission Statement of Operations – Specialized Transit Services Seven Months Ending July 31, 2025 (000’s omitted)
| Description | Actual | Budget | Amount Better (Worse) | Percent Better (Worse) | |
| Revenue | |||||
| Transportation | $ 493.8 | $ 545.4 | $ (51.5) | (9.4)% | |
| City of London | 8,482.5 | 8,482.5 | – | 0.0 % | |
| Total revenue | 8,976.3 | 9,027.8 | (51.5) | (0.6)% | |
| Expenditure | |||||
| Personnel cost | 833.3 | 886.1 | 52.8 | 6.0 % | |
| Contract service cost | 7,907.4 | 8,025.9 | 118.5 | 1.5 % | |
| All other material expense | 106.9 | 115.8 | 8.9 | 7.7 % | |
| Total expenditure | 8,847.5 | 9,027.8 | 180.3 | 2.0 % | |
| Net favourable/(unfavourable) | $ 128.7 | $ – | $ 128.7 | 1.4 % | |
As indicated in the above table, the service has a net favourable operating budget performance to date of 1.4% or $128,700. An explanation of the variances is set out below.
Net Operating Costs
- unfavourable transportation revenue of $51,500 due to lower ridership than budgeted;
- favourable personnel costs of $52,800 due to timing of vacancies and less than anticipated overtime; and
- favourable contract service costs of $118,500 due to mainly to penalties applied to the service provider in Q1 for not achieving predetermined daily service levels, noting these favourable service hours have been reapplied to off peak hours during the remainder of the year.
Ridership
The following table sets out actual to budget ridership and other performance related measures as well as a comparison to the same period in the previous year.
Ridership and Other Statistics Actual vs. Budget Seven Months Ending July 31, 2025 (000’s omitted)
| Description | Actual | Budget | Variance | % Variance | 2024 Actual | % Variance | |
| Eligible passenger trips | 180,161 | 199,400 | (19,239) | (9.6)% | 162,191 | 11.1 % | |
| Attendant/companion trips | 20,833 | 20,800 | 33 | 0.2 % | 17,084 | 21.9 % | |
| Total Trips | 200,994 | 220,200 | (19,206) | (8.7)% | 179,275 | 12.1 % | |
| Average fare | $ 2.457 | $ 2.477 | $ (0.020) | (0.8) % | $ 2.472 | (0.6) % | |
| Service Hours | 110,104 | 110,172 | (69) | (0.1)% | 96,623 | 14.0 % | |
| Total trips per service hour | 1.83 | 2.00 | (0.17) | (8.7)% | 1.86 | (1.6)% | |
As indicated in the table above, total trips were 19,206 rides less than budget. This variance is primarily the result of rides per service hour being less than budget (19,081 trips) and fewer service hours than budgeted being provided (125 trips).
The unfavourable variance in trips per service hour is largely due to the impacts of the implementation of the new scheduling software over the first few months of the year. Service efficiency was not at expected levels in the early months as administration worked with the vendor to adjust system parameters. In addition, the new scheduling software utilizes actual drive time calculations when scheduling trips, which takes into account the travel time impacts of construction related detours, etc. The recent actual trips per hour have been reviewed and utilized when preparing the 2026 operating budget with respect to anticipated ridership on the specialized service. The impact on the budget financially was minimal, however, it does provide better ridership estimates going forward.
Administration will continue to monitor the operating budget performance reporting on same monthly including providing recommendations as may be appropriate.
Recommended by:
Mike Gregor, Director of Finance
Concurred in by:
Kelly S. Paleczny, General Manager