No pushback over bus, tram rate increases

By Mallory Panuska Staff Writer

(May 12, 2023) A recent increase in Ocean City bus and tram fares seems to have had minimal effect so far with reported Springfest weekend ridership numbers and revenues rivaling prepandemic levels.

“My office has heard very little to no real pushback about the fare increase,” Transit Manager Rob Shearman said to members of the Transportation Committee this week of the $1 bump in both the all-day bus and one-way tram rates that went into effect May 1.

“We had very few people that were caught by surprise,” he continued.

“People understood why it was what it was and we really had no major concerns or pushback about it.”

Resort officials moved to increase bus rates from $3 to $4 and tram fares from $4 to $5 for this summer to offset higher costs for operations and staff. They expected to curtail any lower deployments that would come from the change with increased revenues, which according to early data, seems to be working.

For Springfest, which ran May 4-7, the report showed that bus ridership was about two-thirds where it was for the same weekend in 2019. Revenues were about 90 percent, or the highest the department has seen since covid.

“So that really speaks for the fare increase helping us out in exactly the way we would hope that it would,” Shearman said.

The ridership for trams, which were deployed for the first time this year during Springfest, was 75 percent of what it was four years ago, with revenues at 82 percent.

“Again, we closed that gap a little bit with the fare increase helping us,” Shearman said.

Overall, the monthly bus ridership and deployment numbers, Shearman reported, are pretty much on par with where they have been the last few years.

“I think what we learned last year, what I learned last year, is that the winter and spring doesn’t vary as much as it does in the summertime,” he said.