The story
St. John's Transportation Commission is a board consisting of six members and a chair, appointed by St John's City Council.
Metrobus Transit currently operates 24 routes. Routes travel around the cities of St. John's, Mount Pearl, and Paradise; and service major destinations including the Avalon Mall, Village Shopping Centre, Memorial University, Confederation Building, College of the North Atlantic, Marine Institute, Paradise Double Ice Complex arena, Shoppes at Galway, Mile One Centre, and downtown St. John's.
Metrobus has had two strikes, in 2004 and 2010. The first lasted roughly two weeks, and wages were the key issue; the introduction of a 50/50 cost-sharing health benefit system was the key issue in the 2010 dispute. The latter dispute lasted about three months and was settled with a modest pay hike on January 27, 2011.
In 2006, Metrobus Transit upgraded its fare system to use a smart card system called the m-Card, which replaces tickets and monthly passes with a reloadable card and offers a points and rewards loyalty program.
In 2012, Metrobus Transit acquired nine new fully accessible Nova LFS Smart Buses and planned to purchase twenty-one additional buses by 2017. The Smart Bus technology on these buses can improve fuel economy by up to 18% and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. From the outside, the new buses look very similar to the other low-floor buses already in its fleet, but they are fully accessible and include a wheelchair ramp and other related equipment. In 2017, St. John's and the federal government jointly funded 18 accessible replacement buses and 39 additional bus shelters.
In 2018, Metrobus introduced three brand-new Grande West Vicinity 30 ft (9.1 m) buses, which are 10 ft shorter than the previous model purchased over the years to operate on smaller routes and offer a more fuel-efficient and quiet ride.
From Wikipedia’s article on Metrobus Transit, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4