TransLink touting record ridership and streamlined operations

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VANCOUVER(NEWS1130) – More of us are using transit than ever before.

TransLink is reporting a boost in numbers in its year-end financial report for 2011. Ridership was up a record 6.6 per cent, higher than in 2010 for the Olympics. That resulted in a five per cent increase in fare revenue.

TransLink CEO Ian Jarvis says executive positions have also been reduced from 22 to eleven, helping lead to overall savings.

“Going back to 2009, we’ve taken $30-million dollars out of the business in terms of cost efficiency. And in 2011 our operating cost per service hour grew at a rate lower than inflation,” he says.

Jarvis says the number of workers making $75-thousand dollars is up after a transfer of 100 IT employees from the Coast Mountain Bus Company.   

He says payments to suppliers were also down. “We’ve now passed that point of significant expansion so a lot of our capital spending in terms of major spending like Golden Ears Bridge and the Canada Line are complete,” Jarvis says. 

The number of board and committee meetings was reduced in 2011 resulting in a decrease in total director pay over 2010.

Other highlights included reallocating 170,000 hours to optimize existing service and move it to where it was needed the most and improving bus productivity by 3.3 per cent – the first boost in seven years.

TransLink remains under a provincial audit in an effort to find another $30-million dollars in savings.

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