Two and a half years ago, I took my first transit trip using an on-demand service, travelling between Port Perry and Cannington in rural Durham Region. It was part of a quest I undertook to visit every city and town hall in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area without a car. In March 2023, I found DRT’s booking service to be an exercise in frustration at first, though I eventually landed on a time that worked.
In September 2026, I wanted to travel to Paris, Ontario, a picturesque town of 15,000 people on the Grand River, and only a 15-minute drive from Brantford. In 2000, the Town of Paris was amalgamated with the rural county that surrounds the City of Brantford.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Paris was served by a Brantford Transit bus route, which made sense given the short distance between the two communities. This service was discontinued in 1996 due to funding cutbacks to transit province-wide by the Mike Harris-led Progressive Conservatives. With the loss of Greyhound’s once-a-day local bus between London and Toronto in 2018, there was no way to get to Paris without a car or a taxi ride.
In 2019, the county launched Brant e-Ride, which was later branded as Brant Transit. An on-demand transit service, Brant Transit serves the entire municipality. It also allows pick-ups and drop-offs anywhere within Brantford, as long as either the origin or destination is within the county’s boundaries. Rides are $6 one-way, or $4 for adults over 55 and free for children 12 and under.
The ability to travel between Brantford and the surrounding county allows Brant County residents easy access to workplaces, schools, shopping, or medical services in Brantford, as well as connections to GO buses to McMaster University and Aldershot Station, VIA Rail trains, and the weekday Ride Norfolk service to Waterford and Simcoe. The service also allows Brantford residents to get to employment areas in Brant County, such as the Ford and Adidas warehouses by Highway 403 and Rest Acres Road (Highway 24 South).
The current contractor to Brant Transit is Via Transportation, a New York-based mobility software company specializing in on-demand transit and shuttle service platforms. Drivers are hired locally and use Brant Transit-branded minivans and SUVs.
Brant Transit ridership is growing, with over 25,000 rides provided in 2024, up 11% from 2023. The overwhelming majority of rides taken are between Brantford and Brant County, rather than within the municipality, with 57% of passengers using the service to get to and from work and another 24% using it to access health services.
Unlike the 2024 DRT experience, I found the booking system easy to use and it accepted my trip requests within the times I was looking for: a pickup in Brantford around 10AM (plenty of time for me to get there from Toronto either by VIA train or GO train/bus) and a pickup in Paris around 4PM. That would give me plenty of time for a leisurely walk around Paris, enjoy a relaxed lunch, and browse the downtown.
I travelled between the bus terminal in Downtown Brantford and the Paris Wincey Mills building, just off Paris’ main street. The old textile mill, once a Canadian Tire store, was beautifully restored, with a café, market, and brewery on the lower level, and offices on the upper two floors.
The only trouble was the initial pick-up. The app, as well as the text alerts, kept telling me to wait at 73 George Street, the location of the old Brantford Carnegie Library now occupied by Wilfrid Laurier University. However, the tracking app — which appears similar to the Uber or Lyft platforms — showed the that correct location was actually the bus terminal. Luckily, I made it in time to meet the driver.
I shared the ride to Paris with one other passenger, who remained on board after I departed. On the return ride, I could see the driver made several stops before picking me up, with a stop en route at one of the warehouses near Highway 403, where two other passengers were waiting, all headed to Brantford.
Overall, I was satisfied with my experience. The drivers were friendly, the ride comfortable, and the app easy to use. If Brant Transit on a September Thursday was reflective of on-demand transit in general, the concept would leave a very positive experience for users and municipalities alike.
That said, there are some caveats. As the Paris area continues to grow, especially with large employers (an Amazon fulfillment centre is nearing completion), there will be increasing demand for transit. Nearby, Brantford Transit increased service to the North West industrial area, with two routes (20 and 21) now serving that employment cluster, just on the border with Brant County.
Furthermore, Paris itself continues to grow, with new residential subdivisions on Rest Acres Road near Highway 403. In the future, Brant County should seriously consider fixed-route services to serve commercial and residential growth in and around Paris, either as part of Brant Transit, contracted to Brantford as before 1996, or both. In the meantime, the on-demand service can continue to provide mobility for the rest of the county, and even within Paris during off-peak times such as evenings and weekends.
I would have benefitted from a fixed-route service for a leisurely visit; once the transit times are booked, the passenger is tied to those times. After three hours in Paris, I had more than enough time to see everything I planned; had there been a bus at 3:30, I would have hopped on that instead of waiting for a 4:35 pickup. Though on-demand transit offers geographical flexibility in a sparsely populated or low demand area, fixed-route, scheduled services provide temporal flexibility that on-demand services can not match.
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