Pacific Western Transportation

Canadian bus transport company

Pacific Western Transportation

Parent| Student Transportation Inc.
Founded| 1958
Headquarters| 1857 Centre Avenue, S.E.
Locale| Calgary, Alberta
Service area| British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Yukon
Service type| intercity coach, charter coach, school bus, public transit, paratransit, airport express
Website| www.pwt.ca

Pacific Western Transportation (also d/b/a P.W. Transportation) provides a variety of bus services in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Yukon. Depending on the location, it offers scheduled and chartered school busing, municipal transit and handi-bus services, airport passenger services and local and long-distance coach charters.[1]

Since 2022, it is a subsidiary of Student Transportation of America.[2] In July 2024, Keolis announced that it is acquiring PWT's Transit and Motorcoach operations.[3]

## Lines of business

[edit]

### Employee transportation

[edit]

#### Diversified Transportation

[edit]

Diversified Transportation[4] is a bus transportation company based in Fort McMurray that provides services to industry and private coach charters as well as operating some local city transit systems.

### Student transportation

[edit]

#### Southland Transportation

[edit]

Southland Transportation[5] is a Calgary based bus company that mainly provides school bus service to local school boards, bus charter services and commuter service from Cochrane and Okotoks to Calgary and also servicing northern Alberta from Edmonton, Cold Lake, etc. North Battleford is the location of the Southland operation in Saskatchewan providing school bus services to local school boards, and industrial and contract charters.

#### Prairie Bus Lines

[edit]

Prairie Bus Lines[6] is based in Red Deer and provides primarily school bus services as well as industrial and charter

#### Standard Bus

[edit]

Standard Bus[7] is based in British Columbia.

## Divested (Keolis)

[edit]

### Motorcoach

[edit]

#### Red Arrow Motorcoach

[edit]

Red Arrow[8] provides inter-city coach transportation between Fort McMurray, Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary, Lethbridge, with a connecting shuttle bus to Calgary International Airport. In Ontario, Red Arrow offers a route from Toronto to Ottawa via Kingston. Red Arrow fleet consists of Prevost H3-45 coaches equipped as follows: wheelchair accessible, seat belts, Wifi, computer plug-ins and a snack galley on board.

#### Ebus

[edit]

Ebus[9] service started on October 11, 2011, and operates Prevost H3-45 and X3-45 coaches. This subsidiary of Red Arrow travels between Edmonton, Red Deer, Fort McMurray and Calgary in Alberta as well as Kamloops, Kelowna and Vancouver in British Columbia. Service between Edmonton and Kamloops is provided through a partnership with Thompson Valley Charters.

#### BC Bus North

[edit]

Main article: BC Bus North

BC Bus North[10] is an intercity bus service in northern British Columbia.

#### On-It Regional Transit

[edit]

On-It Regional Transit[11] is a commuter bus service from Cochrane and Okotoks to Calgary, and seasonal service to Banff and Canmore.

#### Northern Health Connections

[edit]

Northern Health Connections[12] joins remote communities in British Columbia to health facilities.

Airport bus in downtown Toronto

## Discontinued

[edit]

### Airport Express

[edit]

PW Airport Express was purchased after the demise of Gray Coach, which had a franchise to operate a route to the Toronto Pearson International Airport. The service connects between selected downtown Toronto locations and Pearson Airport.

The Toronto Airport Express was discontinued on October 31, 2014, due to falling ridership and the anticipated opening of the Union Pearson Express, a rail link connecting the airport to downtown Toronto.

Porter shuttle bus

### Porter shuttle

[edit]

Porter Airlines provides a shuttle bus service for its passengers between the Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto and the ferry dock/passenger tunnel to the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (island airport). The service is operated by Pacific Western at 10-minute intervals using Thomas SLF buses. This service has stopped as of March 2020.

### Highway 3 Connector

[edit]

Highway 3 Connector[13] was a commuter bus service from Lethbridge to Medicine Hat.

## Incidents

[edit]

* On December 24, 2022, an Ebus running from Kelowna to Vancouver rolled over killing 4 and sending 52 other people on board to hospital. The accident occurred on Highway 97C east of Merritt in the British Columbia Interior. The suspected cause of the accident was icy road conditions.[14]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ PWT Calgary
2. ^ "Student Transportation Expands Canadian Operations Through Major Acquisition".
3. ^ "Keolis Signs Agreement to Acquire Key Business Lines of Pacific Western Transportation".
4. ^ dtl.ca
5. ^ southland.ca
6. ^ prairiebus.com
7. ^ standardbusbc.com
8. ^ redarrow.ca
9. ^ myebus.ca
10. ^ bcbus.ca
11. ^ onitregionaltransit.ca
12. ^ nhconnections.ca
13. ^ highway3connector.ca/
14. ^ "RCMP say four killed in bus rollover on icy B.C. highway that sends 52 to hospital". Toronto Star. December 25, 2022.

## External links

[edit]

* Official site
* Pacific Western Transit