The town continues to step up the promotion of its new Cochrane On-demand Local Transit (COLT) system scheduled for a soft launch on Oct. 7.

Transit coordinator Devin LaFleche will be among those displaying the COLT during tonight's (Sept. 12) Historic Downtown street market. The bus will be on-site from 5 to 8 p.m.

It also will be on display at the next three Cochrane Farmers' Markets.

The bus being displayed is not the same model or size as the ones that will be permanently used by Cochrane. The manufacturing of the buses has been slightly delayed, forcing the town to come up with a temporary solution to stay on schedule for a fall launch. 

"We're right where we thought we would be, even with a little hiccup with the buses," says LaFleche. "We found a solution for the interim to get us started in the fall."

The town expects to have all five of its ARBOC Spirit of Mobility buses in use early in the New Year. One is arriving in October and the balance in January. None of the temporary buses will have bike racks but they will be included on the buses in the permanent fleet.

The educational campaign will heavily focus on the service's app and goes full gear the week of Sept. 23. That's when the bus stop signs will go up. Around the same time, an information booth will be established at the SLS Family Sports Centre and will be manned a couple of days a week through to October.

The COLT app is currently available but LaFleche says it's best to wait to download. Currently, it's being used to test the system at this point.

"We're waiting until about two weeks out to promote people downloading the app because they'll be an educational portion added and it will be fresh in your mind when the service begins."

"It's fine to download, but you really won't get the real experience until a couple of days ahead of the launch date."

When it is launched, the service will be free of charge until the end of 2019. After that, the established fees kick in. The top rate is $2.50 for one-way transportation, with lower rates for seniors and youth/students. They'll also be monthly passes and books of passes available.

The 2020 budget for transit has been based upon 35,000 rides. LaFleche says they based their budget on conservative numbers, lower than those of a Southland Transportation projection of 55,000 and less than 25 per cent of the rides projected when the town first looked at establishing transit many years ago.