Toronto Transit Commission bus system


The Toronto Transit Commission uses buses and other vehicles for public transportation. In 2018, the TTC bus system had 159 bus routes carrying over 264million riders over of routes with buses travelling in the year., the TTC has 192 bus routes in operation, including 28 night bus routes. In, the system had a ridership of, or about per weekday as of.
Bus routes extend throughout the city and are integrated with the subway system and the streetcar system, with free transfers among the three systems. Many subway stations are equipped with bus terminals, and a few with streetcar terminals, located within a fare paid area.
, the bus system has about 2,100 buses. Bus propulsion includes diesel, diesel-electric hybrid, battery-electric and gasoline. Four bus lengths are used: regular buses long, articulated buses long and minibuses either or long. All buses are fully accessible with low floors and, except for minibuses, all are equipped with bicycle racks.

History

19th and 20th centuries

Bus service in Toronto began in 1849, when the first public transport system in Toronto, the Williams Omnibus Bus Line, was launched. The service began with a fleet of six horse-drawn stagecoaches. After ten years, the use of streetcars were introduced in the city as the Toronto Street Railway was established in 1861. After a year of competition between the two companies, the TSR had surpassed Williams Omnibus Line in ridership.
Until 1921, several private and publicly owned transport systems were established and ended up being merged into one another or abandoned. Electric streetcars were widely used in Toronto and surrounding settlements during the new century. After the establishment of the Toronto Transportation Commission , streetcar routes were taken over from predecessors in 1921. It ran bus routes by using motor buses for the first time in the city. The TTC also experimented the use of trolley buses from 1922 to 1925, operating a line on Merton and Mount Pleasant Road. Gray Coach, an intercity bus line by the TTC, began operation in 1927. As the coach service increased in ridership, the TTC built the Toronto Coach Terminal. By 1933, the TTC introduced the local bus and streetcar stop design, a white pole with a red band on the top and bottom. Between 1930 and 1948, the city replaced various TTC-operated radial railway routes extending to surrounding municipalities with bus routes.
On 1 January 1954, the TTC became the sole public transit operator in the newly formed Metropolitan Toronto. Thus, the TTC took over some private bus operations that existed within the Metro area. These included:
Between 1947 and 1993, the TTC operated a trolley bus system on medium ridership routes. In 1947, the TTC created four trolley bus routes in the west end that replaced streetcar routes. These routes were based at the Lansdowne garage. About 1954, a separate trolley bus division was created at the old Eglinton garage to serve routes on Yonge Street, Avenue Road and Mount Pleasant Road north of Eglinton Avenue. When the Yonge–University subway was extended to York Mills station, the Yonge trolley bus line was closed and its buses were reassigned to serve Bay Street. In the early 1970s, the trolley bus fleet was rebuilt. The TTC leased some trolley buses from Edmonton, which was phasing out its fleet. The last trolley buses ran in 1993 on the Bay and Annette routes. Rather than replacing the aging trolley bus infrastructure, the TTC decided to use CNG buses to replace the trolley bus fleet.
In January 1960, the General Motors "New Look" buses, informally called "fishbowls", went into service. As earlier New Looks were retired they in turn would be replaced by newer versions of the New look model, with the result that the model would serve Toronto for over 50 years.
In 1966, plans were made to replace all streetcar routes with buses in the next 20 years. The plan was cancelled in 1972 and streetcar routes were rebuilt. In 1967, GO Transit was established by the Government of Ontario with Gray Coach serving as its operator for most of its routes. The TTC operated its first dial-a-bus services under GO Transit in 1973. In 1975, the first paratransit service, Wheel-Trans, was established by a private operator. The TTC also began using minibuses for minor routes, which would be replaced by regular buses by 1981.
File:Onibusyu.jpg|thumb|A Wheel-Trans bus at York University in 2013. The paratransit service has been operated by the TTC since 1988.
In 1982, the TTC acquired 12 articulated buses, the articulated version of the GM New Look bus. The Province of Ontario sponsored the buses as a trial. The bus had rear-wheel drive whereby the trailer section pushes the rest of the bus. The TTC sold all 12 of these buses to Mississauga in 1987, and chose the Orion Ikarus articulated bus.
In 1987, the TTC acquired 90 Orion Ikarus articulated buses; Ikarus manufactured the components in Budapest, Hungary and Orion Bus Industries assembled them in its Mississauga plant. The buses had mid-section wheel drive whereby the front section of the bus pulled the trailer section. Poor welding led to corrosion problems, and the TTC retired 50 of the buses by 1999, while others were sold to OC Transpo in Ottawa. The last Orion Ikarus bus ran in June 2003.
In 1987, the TTC implemented the Blue Night Network, an expansion of its overnight services using buses and streetcars. The following year, the TTC took over Wheel-Trans services. The TTC sold Gray Coach Lines to the Scotland-based Stagecoach Group in 1990, while also introducing "community buses", providing minibus service in a few residential neighbourhoods.
In 1989, the TTC began using buses fuelled by compressed natural gas. Supported by subsidies from senior governments, the TTC used CNG buses to replace its trolley bus fleet. CNG buses were serviced at the Wilson Yard which had a special CNG fueling station. Because of safety concerns about CNG fuel tanks on the bus roof and low overhead clearances, these buses were banned from interior terminals. Also, the savings of using natural gas over diesel fuel was not as great as expected. The TTC converted some CNG buses to diesel.
Accessibility expanded to regular buses in 1996 with the use of lift-equipped buses. This was further improvised two years later when low-floor buses were added to the fleet.

21st century

Between 2006 and 2009, the TTC made its first purchases of hybrid electric buses, choosing the Orion VII model. These buses had batteries that would only last 18 months instead of the expected 5 years. As a result, the TTC went back to purchasing diesel buses until 2018, when it would try hybrid technology again.
In 2009, the TTC opened its first bus rapid transit route that uses its own dedicated busway and bus lanes when route 196 York University Rocket was rerouted to the York University Busway. The extension of Line 1 to Vaughan Metropolitan Centre opened in December 2017 caused the TTC to discontinue service on the 196, and since 2022, the 939B Finch Express is the only route that continues to use it.
In December 2011, the TTC bus fleet became fully accessible with the retirement of the last of the old, non-accessible GM "New Look" buses, a model dating back to the 1950s. The last New look buses ran on 52 Lawrence West on 16 December, and were replaced by accessible Orion VII low-floor buses. At that time, the TTC operated 1,800 accessible buses, all of which were equipped with bike racks.
The TTC ordered 27 articulated buses from Nova Bus, which began revenue operation in the spring of 2014. At long, as compared to a standard bus, the Nova LFS articulated vehicles hold about 112 passengers, compared to 65 on the standard-length bus.
As of 23 December 2016, all of the buses in the TTC system have Presto card readers. Buses delivered to the TTC since 2017 have a new livery based on the livery of the Flexity Outlook streetcars.
In November 2018, the TTC received the first 55 of 255 hybrid [|electric buses], specifically the LFS Hybrid model from Nova Bus.
In April 2019, the TTC received the first of 60 electric buses from the three bus manufacturers: Proterra, New Flyer, and BYD. On 3 June 2019, the first electric bus went into revenue service on the 35 Jane bus route. On 26 October 2019, Proterra Catalyst BE40 electric buses went into service on the 6 Bay bus route. By September 2020, the BYD K9M buses had arrived, and on 8 September, the first BYD bus went into service on the 116 Morningside route. At that point in time, with 60 electric buses, the TTC indicated it had the largest fleet of electric buses in North America.
In 2020, effects of the COVID-19 pandemic caused TTC ridership to decrease dramatically. On 23 March 2020, the TTC suspended all express bus services system-wide, with the exception of the 900 Airport Express and 927 Highway 27 Express. A number of seats began to be blocked off to encourage social distancing.
On 31 May 2021, the TTC started a pilot for free Wi-Fi on buses, starting with the 35 Jane route and to continue later in June with the 102 Markham Road route.
In late October 2021, the West Rouge automated shuttle trial was scheduled to start using an autonomous vehicle. The route was to have run from Rouge Hill GO Station to West Rouge Community Centre. The battery-powered vehicle had a capacity for eight passengers and operated at a maximum speed of in autonomous mode or in manual mode. During the trial, the vehicle would operate with an attendant. The project was jointly sponsored by the City of Toronto, Metrolinx and the TTC. However, the project was suspended after an accident involving the Whitby Autonomous Vehicle Electric shuttle operated by Durham Region Transit, which used the same type of vehicle. The project was cancelled after the vehicle supplier became defunct in mid-January 2022.
Effective 7 May 2023, the TTC rebranded seasonal routes in the 200-series. Bus stop signs for seasonal routes show a white-and-pink route lozenge and a new seasonal service icon.
During the winter cold in the fourth quarter of 2023 and first quarter of 2024, up to five TTC buses were parked at Spadina station to act as a makeshift homeless shelter to address a shortage of shelter space in the city. The buses are staffed by TTC operators and city staff. Portable washrooms are provided nearby. By the end of January 2024, there were already 1,000 overnight stays on the buses; up to 39 people used the buses each night.
In September 2024, the TTC received the first two of 340 battery-electric buses ordered from New Flyer Industries Canada and Nova Bus. The TTC expects the last of the ordered buses to be delivered in 2026, resulting in a total fleet of 400 electric buses, which would make up 20 percent of the TTC's bus fleet. The TTC expects to have an all-electric fleet by 2040.