With no end in sight to the Acadian Bus Lines strike, Advanced Shuttle transit service has seized the opportunity to expand into areas once served by the bus company.
Advanced Shuttle, which operates a van shuttle service between P.E.I. and N.S. is now looking to expand its service into N.B.
Advanced Shuttle president David Anderson said the primary route into N.B. will be from Charlottetown to Fredericton, but would be making many stops along the way, like Port Elgin, Sackville, Moncton and Sussex.
The idea is to cater to more students, such of those attending UPEI and Holland College, he said.
"The reason for Fredericton is there's a hospital there and there's also a UNB. Saint John also has a UNB and a hospital."
Advanced Shuttle has an advantage over Acadian by being an express shuttle, he said.
"We can probably do it (make the trip) in less time than they can, because they have so many stops. We can only book 11 on a shuttle.
"So even though we may have 20 stops, we can only stop at 11 places."
When the license to operate in N.B. is approved, they will start with a weekend service, Friday to Monday.
"We'll see how that goes. If it gets to the point where we can run it seven days a week, that's great, we can mirror it off of our Halifax one." He said.
A transfer process at Port Elgin was also in planning stages for people from Halifax who want to go to Fredericton and vice versa, but it was too complicated, he said.
"In order to do that you would have one shuttle travelling at night, which nobody would use, then you'd have one travelling during the day and it's just not going to work."
The expanded service will continue even if the strike at Acadian ends, he said.
"We were going to do this with or without Acadian. Acadian Lines just gave me a little more incentive to get it done now."
