Cancellations on OC Transpo’s system ticked back up in the month of August, with 749 bus routes dropping out of service.

The agency alerts users about cancelations through the @OCTranspoLive Twitter account. Metro has been tracking and collecting those cancellations since February.

The cancellations happen when OC Transpo is unable to get a bus in place to service a particular route, often due to traffic congestion or other issues.

In July, there were only 570 cancellations, the lowest Metro has seen we began keeping track.

The numbers July and August were much improved compared to the winter and spring, when the service average nearly 1,500 monthly cancellations.

There were 936 cancellations in June.

OC Transpo does reduce the number of trips in the summer, but only by between four and five per cent.

As usual, the most heavily travelled routes were also the most cancelled. In August, the 95 topped the list with 84 cancellations, followed by the 94 with 58 cancellations, the 91 with 46 cancellations, and the 97 with 30.

For local routes it was the riders of the 104 who were most often kept waiting for a next bus: that route had 36 cancellations in August. The second most commonly cancelled local route was the 11, at 31, and then the 12, at 27.

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