Operations and Services
The Covid -19 pandemic resulted in significant declines in ridership on traditional public transit services which supported a daily commute to a downtown workplace. This resulted in loss of revenues, service cutbacks and safety issues on underutilized services. With an increase in remote working, some public transit ridership may never come back. However, Calgarians are still travelling for services and leisure and lines which support these activities have rebounded quickly.
CABR is a service which meets post – pandemic travel needs, including the rebound of airport traffic to pre-pandemic levels. As just one example, airport rail services such as Canada Line in Vancouver tend to have stronger ridership in the evenings, at weekends and on public holidays than at the peak hour daily office commute. This leads to better economic use of the infrastructure, higher quality services and improved safety as more staff and more passengers deter anti-social behaviour.
Construction
Public transit projects in Canada have also struggled with construction delays and cost overruns. The characteristics of CABR are different allowing an improved delivery model with significantly lower risks to government.