‘Excuse of a bus’: riders decry Access-A-Bus booking system

Halifax Transit is awaiting approval for a new Access-A-Bus paratransit booking system as people with disabilities complain that getting around is far from a bus ride away and closer to an ordeal.

The transit agency said that by summer 2025 it will combine the PASS Web Client and PASS Web Care systems — booking software that allows riders to cancel and request rides online and view the status of their trip without having to go through customer support. 

Director of Transit Operations Philip Herritt described the system upgrades to the Accessibility Advisory Committee on Jan. 20.

“What these items will do is add online booking ability and online notification ability to our current system,” Herritt said during a virtual presentation. “That’s not currently available now.”

The only way to book an Access-A-Bus is to call a phone line between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. Users can book their ride up to seven days in advance and must cancel 24 hours in advance to avoid a penalty.

Who’s to blame?

The accessibility committee received statistics from the more than 200,000 Access-A-Bus trip requests registered in 2024. Data shows nearly one in five requests were cancelled, with roughly 7,000 no-shows.

Access-A-Bus user Ashlee Wournell said the system is the problem. Wournell met The Signal at the NSCC Akerley Campus, where she plays sports with Special Olympics Nova Scotia.

“Terrible, terrible,” said Wournell, who uses Access-A-Bus every day with her guide dog.

“You’re on hold for sometimes a half hour, 45 minutes. And when you do get in, then there’s nobody (on the line). There’s no help, basically.”

Wournell adds the biggest issue is being picked up at the scheduled time.

“If they could have a system like regular transit, the conventional transit app, where you could basically track your own buses. So you don’t have to call and be like, ‘hey, where’s my bus?’”

Another user, Sarah Julien, said she has given up on trying to use Access-A-Bus.

“The joke that I’ve been using is ‘excuse of a bus,’” she told The Signal. “There’s really a lot of problems with it.”

Julien relies on an electric scooter for mobility. She said she moved to Halifax from Porter’s Lake N.S. in 2006 because better access to transit was her only option to gain independence. 

One problem she found with Access-A-Bus was the lack of communication between drivers and riders. She recalled an appointment where she found herself stranded after her booked ride was delayed without notification.

“I was sitting there, waiting, for two hours extra after my appointment.”

Wournell said drivers are as frustrated as users and that an online system would relieve some of the internal pressure that make the phone line impractical.

Councilors weigh in

HRM Coun. Trish Purdy, a member of the Accessibility Advisory Committee, agreed with Wournell regarding the flaws of the Access-A-Bus system.

“Some of the big (issues) are for pickups, having to wait a long time for pickup because you can’t really schedule it,” she said in an interview following the committee presentation.

“Users might say ‘well, my appointment is going to be two hours. Can you be back here in two hours?’ And that’s not always possible. So, yeah, it’s inconvenient.”

HRM Coun. Jean St-Amand, a fellow committee member, said he too was concerned about the ratio of successful trips to unsuccessful ones.

“I’d really like to see those numbers go up and have some appropriate measures in place so that we can see whether or not we’re affecting that kind of change in the short term,” he told The Signal in a phone interview.

Representatives from Halifax Transit were unavailable to speak with The Signal.