A cap on international students in being blamed for a decrease in ridership on Grand River Transit (GRT), a new report says.

The report going before a Region of Waterloo committee meeting Tuesday says there were 4.1 million fewer riders in 2025 compared with 2024.

It remains to be seen what 2026 will bring. According to the report: “While ridership appears to be stabilizing, 2026 ridership projections will be updated before the mid-year council report when new enrolment numbers are received from post-secondary partners.”

“The upcoming academic year is anticipated to be impacted by new immigration policies and revised international student caps announced by the federal government in late 2025,” the report said.

The report going before the sustainability, infrastructure and development committee Tuesday also highlights plans to increase the number of riders by improving the experience for the public.

The breakdown

The report notes the reduction in ridership went from 26 million in 2024 to 22.1 million riders in 2025 — a 16 per cent decrease.

Neil Malcolm, the acting director of transit services, says while ridership is down the statistics were actually better than what they forecast.

“So we forecast through the rest of the year thinking we’d be at about 21.9 million and then by the end of 2025 we got up over 22 million,” said Malcolm.

“Overall there was some really unanticipated changes to overall student population in the region. And we just had to be flexible and kind of respond with our service level to make sure that we were providing the right level of service for this changing population.”

When you break down the numbers from the services GRT provides, MobilityPLUS saw the biggest increase in ridership of 16 per cent up from 2024, delivering almost 200,000 trips.

The investment

The report also boasts of upgrades that were made to transit infrastructure and other improvements along transit routes.

Malcolm says they also want to improve on GRT’s time performance.

“[Buses will] get through signals more quickly, stay on time, which is really important to customers, having buses that arrive at a stop on time. They know when to be at the stop and when they’re going to get to their destinations.”

Last year, GRT upgraded 62 bus stops with concrete landing pads and installed 21 shelters at certain stops. They also increased midday summer service for Route 201 by 10 minutes for consistent year-round schedules. As well they matched the Route 302 ION bus service to match weekday ION LRT for connections between the three cities in the region.

As well two new routes were introduced — Route 50 which provides coverage to residential neighbourhoods in the Myers Road and Branchton Road area. And a new route to connect the ION train and 302 ION bus at Fairway to Chicopee Ski and Summer Resort.