A spike in ridership for Transit Windsor.
Executive Director Pat Delmore says ridership jumped 22% in 2018.
He says there was also a 54% increase in student ridership compared to 2017.
Delmore says despite some challenges, 2018 was a good year for Transit Windsor.
"We're looking at about 22% increase in ridership which is unheard of in the industry," says Delmore. "There were some other municipalities that were also seeing ridership numbers like that and for all those municipalities in Ontario anyways, it was centred around international students coming into the communities and attending community colleges and universities."
He says the highest ridership levels came from St. Clair College.
"Our Dominion 5 route, the Dougall 6 and the South Windsor 7 all saw very high high numbers," says Delmore. "For example with the Dominion 5, we've had to double and even triple this level of service that we provide to St. Clair College from downtown, doubled the service from the west end along the South Windsor 7 route so very positive numbers from the college."
Delmore says there was a strong increase in ridership from University of Windsor students as well.
"One of the recent numbers that we pulled was that of the university students that were eligible for a U-Pass, just under 60% used it at least once during the times of September to December of this past year," says Delmore. "Those numbers are greatly increased. I can remember the first year of the U-Pass agreement, only 3,000 students picked up the pass and this year we're at about 8,000."
There was a 5% drop in adult ridership and a 3% decrease in senior riders in 2018.
The tunnel bus was also down 7% due to tunnel construction.
Overall, more than 8.1-million riders used Transit Windsor in 2018.
In 2017, about 6.7-million used the service.