Transportation

Transportation Services manages, supervises and coordinates all operations, personnel and vehicle maintenance activities for the region's Conventional and Custom (handyDART) services. It is responsible for business planning, budgeting, labour relations, performance management and the delivery of transit services.

The Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN) operates and maintains a fleet of 50 conventional New Flyer Compressed Natural Gas buses (CNG) buses and four (4) ARBOC community diesel buses. These vehicles are equipped with bicycle racks and are accessible to persons with limited mobility (i.e. wheelchairs, small scooters, and child strollers).

RDN Transit is an integrated service connecting communities from Deep Bay in the north, Electoral Area H, to Cedar, Electoral Area A, south of the City of Nanaimo. The amount of service varies between the northern and southern parts of the Regional District, with approximately 90% of the service hours occurring in the southern areas, primarily within the City of Nanaimo.

Service is provided for the most part, between 6 a.m. and 12 p.m., Monday to Saturday, with reduced service on Sunday. Service frequency varies, ranging from 10-minute service to every hour, with additional peak time service on weekdays.

Revenue hours of service have increased from 102,000 annual hours of service in 2009 to 121,600 annual hours of service in 2018.

The Regional District of Nanaimo also operates and maintains a fleet of 14 Custom (handyDART) vehicles that provide responsive on-demand, door-to-door service to persons with disabilities severe enough to prevent them from using the Conventional transit system unattended. Service is provided to residents within the same transit service boundaries as Conventional transit. Custom service hours for 2017/18 are 25,317 annually.

Service is scheduled between the hours of 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, with limited service Saturdays and Sundays and no service on statutory holidays. Weekend service is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. No weekend service is available in the Northern Communities at this time