Southwestern Ontario Service Improvement: VIA Rail and Robert Q Harmonize
VIA Rail Canada (VIA Rail) and Robert Q Airbus (Robert Q) have harmonized their schedules in an effort to improve their service offerings in Southwestern Ontario and encourage more Canadians to leave their cars at home, to help to further reduce the carbon footprint of transportation in Canada. Starting on November 16th, people travelling between Sarnia, London and Toronto can benefit from an enhanced schedule offering five trips (two eastbound and three westbound) with efficient connection times between the train and the bus ranging from 21 to 50 minutes.
VIA Rail's inter-modal strategy, which puts us at the center of an integrated network of different passenger carriers, has had a significant impact on the mobility of Canadians. "As we continue our work to increase the train frequencies in Southwestern Ontario, the needs of our passengers are and will continue to be our primary focus. We hope this collaboration with our partner Robert Q will enable more people to participate in the economic and social activities of other communities," said Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, president and chief executive officer of VIA Rail. "VIA Railappreciates the loyalty of our passengers and we are committed to contributing to the development of the transportation systems in the area. The schedule improvements with Robert Q are an encouraging first step and we hope to be able to expand services in the near future."
"Robert Q is pleased to be able to partner with VIA Rail to constantly adjust and improve our schedule to best serve our customers", said Jim Blundell, chief executive officer of Robert Q. "It is more difficult to make those adjustments than one might think given that every scheduled run is interconnected with other connections which impacts our customers and our ability to provide on-time transportation for all our riders. However, our team of customer-focused transportation professionals is committed to constantly improving by listening and reacting to our customers' needs."
