For many northern B.C. residents, public transportation is an integral part of their daily lives and routines. Whether it’s used to get to a healthcare appointment, be on time for class, get to and from work, visit family, or a combination of things, inter-community and rural transportation is considered an essential service by thousands of riders.
To increase public transportation ridership in northern B.C., the Bus the North initiative was officially launched by Northern Development Initiative Trust (NDIT) in 2023. This initiative includes “large coach-style buses that connect over long distances such as the BC Bus North and Health Connections, to regional transit buses operated by BC Transit, to small shuttle buses and vans providing service in smaller communities and to regional centres.” – Bus the North website
Bus the North has built a connective network of over 100 communities in Northern BC so riders have options for short and long distance travel, “from Prince Rupert to Prince George and from Fort St. John to Williams Lake.” – Bus the North website
The providers that are a part of Bus the North and their drivers have different routes and schedules, all aiming to accommodate a variety of travel and accessibility needs, ensuring that everyone can get to their destination safely.
For drivers like Mike McDougall from Fraser Lake and Oscar Carrasco from Kitimat, public transit is not just a way to make a living, it also provides a means to connect with members of their communities on a deeper and more personal level. These connections inspire their riders to keep coming back, with many seeing drivers like Mike and Oscar as friends.
“I don’t want anyone to ever say, ‘I don’t want to do this again’—I want to make sure they want to [use public transit] again,” said McDougall, volunteer driver at Autumn Services.
“Our responsibility is to bring them to the places they need to go and to help them come back home safely,” said Carrasco.
Through their partnership with Monogram Communications, a full-service public relations firm in British Columbia, Bus the North shared/pitched press releases featuring Mike and Oscar and their positive impacts as a part of this initiative. These stories received local and national media coverage.
In addition to the support that Bus the North has provided to Northern BC bus drivers, it has also been utilized by various local organizations across the region for the betterment of their communities. Amelia Andrews from the District of Kitimat summarized this sentiment when she explained that “the feedback has been one of, “thank goodness [for these transportation services].””
The resources distributed as part of the initiative have been vital for the districts that have been able to implement them, enabling residents to access information pertaining to public transportation options in their areas freely and without restriction.
“We have several QR codes here, including the one for Bus the North, so that even if our building is closed, people can still get some transportation information,” said Jeannie McGregor, staff member at the Vanderhoof Tourism & Cultural Centre.
The primary objective of Bus the North initiative was to increase ridership, therefore the utilization of awareness-based communications tactics was essential. This included providing transportation providers and community partners with marketing materials and social media posts every month, reaching out to Indigenous partners to supply assets for use in newsletters and community meetings, sending posters and pre-printed rack cards to post-secondary institutions, emailing Bus the North board members to share information with their communities, and performing SEO optimization on the Bus the North website to ensure more riders were seeing the information.
To track the effectiveness of these tactics, Monogram Communications compiled and reported on analytics from each successive month. These analytics reports included specific examples of materials in action, which included photos of QR codes and information cards posted at Visitor Information Centres, magnetics and clings attached to shuttle vans, printed materials at local restaurants, highway billboards and even a digital banner on the big screen at the Prince George CN Centre, seen by nearly 6,000 fans.
These analytics reports also included monthly ridership statistics for key districts, and statistics from the same months in 2023 for comparison, which found that for the two-year Bus the North campaign, Vanderhoof’s ridership increased by 12 per cent, Granisle’s ridership increased by 16 per cent, the Friendship House Association of Prince Rupert’s ridership increased by 67 per cent and Dze L K’Ant’s Friendship Centre Society’s ridership increased by an impressive 148 per cent.
There were also a total of 9,000 riders across all of the tracked shuttle locations since April of 2024.
These numbers speak for themselves and serve to further exemplify the impact that the Bus the North initiative has had on these communities.
“Our goal with this campaign was to highlight the modes of transportation across the North and also increase ridership for these organizations,” said Holly Plato, Director of Communications at NDIT.