Transpo riders frustrated with recent bus delays

MISHAWAKA, Ind. - As temperatures fall, frustrations are rising for some bus riders at the Mishawaka Transfer Station, who say they have spent hours waiting for Transpo buses that never came.

Transpo says they have seen a slight increase in cancelled trips this October but claim that makes up for less than 1% of their daily trips. Right now, Transpo conducts 400 trips each day during the week and 170 trips on Saturdays.

If you scroll down their Facebook page, you will see cancellation after cancellation.

They say it’s because of ongoing staffing shortages.

Transpo says their ridership went back to over a million in 2022, for the first time since the pandemic, and riders continue to rise.

Thousands of these riders rely on the bus as their main mode of transportation.

So even a small percentage of route cancellations impacts quite a few riders, especially those who rely on the bus as their main mode of transportation.

Transpo takes to Facebook and their app to alert riders of delays, but not to everyone always gets the memo including Damian Ramirez who says he was without a phone waiting for an hour, before realizing his bus route was cancelled.

"It's just a bad thing to be stranded somewhere, when you have no way to get home, or you can't get to where you need to get to,” said Ramirez.

Transpo says they are continuing to hire more drivers to fight cancellations.

They will be having their next operating training starting on November 3. That process typically takes 4 to 6 weeks.