CEO's Report: July Commentary

This past month, Toronto welcomed the world, and the TTC delivered.

During the first phase of the FIFA World Cup 2026™, the routes serving Toronto Stadium and FIFA Fan Festival™ carried more than 1.1 million customer trips on six match days, a 42-per-cent increase over the same period last year. Those trips were made on the streetcar, bus and subway that connect some of Toronto’s busiest destinations, including the King, Dufferin, Bathurst, Ossington, and Harbourfront corridors. They were also in addition to our regular daily service and the many sporting, cultural, and entertainment events that make Toronto vibrant throughout the summer.

These results reflect months of planning, targeted service investments, and strong collaboration across the organization. More importantly, they reflect the dedication of TTC employees who safely and reliably moved hundreds of thousands of residents and visitors throughout the tournament. I also want to thank the Chair, Commissioners, and the Mayor for their support and commitment to ensuring the TTC was ready for one of the largest events in our city’s history.

While additional analysis is still underway, the early results are encouraging. Over the coming weeks, we will continue to evaluate ridership, service performance, and customer feedback so we can build on what worked and apply those lessons to future major events. The World Cup demonstrated what the TTC can achieve when our people, planning, and investments come together to deliver for Toronto.

The Streetcar network played an important role in that success and is the focus of this report.

Streetcars remain one of the defining features of transit in Toronto, serving many of the city’s busiest corridors and carrying approximately one in every 10 TTC customers. They connect neighbourhoods to employment centres, cultural destinations, shopping districts, and rapid transit stations, providing a critical link in the daily journeys of hundreds of thousands of customers. During the World Cup, they helped move customers between Toronto Stadium, the FIFA Fan Festival™, entertainment districts, and local businesses, demonstrating the important role the network plays in supporting both Toronto’s economy and mobility.

We are seeing encouraging signs across the network. Streetcar boardings increased nine per cent year over year as more customers returned to regular travel patterns. We also benefitted from the pause in major construction activity required to support World Cup operations, allowing us to provide uninterrupted streetcar service without the need for bus replacements. This improved operational efficiency has enabled us to deliver service using the vehicles best suited to the network. Construction projects and the associated service impacts will resume, but the experience highlights the benefits that customers see when the streetcar network can operate with fewer interruptions.

At the same time, we know there is more work to do.

Reliability remains a priority. On Time Performance has improved since the beginning of the year, but remains approximately three percentage points below last year’s level. Total delay minutes are up 12 per cent year over year, driven primarily by increases in passenger-related delays.

We are examining trends across the network, identifying recurring hot spots and reviewing passenger-related delays so we can focus our efforts where they will have the greatest impact.

Across the TTC, we are encouraged by improving ridership trends. While revenue remains below budget year to date following a slower start to the year, both subway and streetcar boardings are now ahead of last year’s levels, and bus ridership trends continue to strengthen. While overall customer satisfaction sits at 69 per cent, slightly below our target of 70 per cent through traditional survey methods, new approaches using Real Time surveying is showing results of 4.6/5. Strong scores for bus and subway service are offset by lower streetcar results, reinforcing the importance of continued focus on the customer experience across every mode.

The World Cup has shown what is possible when Toronto invests in transit and when TTC employees perform at their best. Our challenge now is to build on that momentum, continue improving the Streetcar network and deliver the reliable, safe and customer-focused service that Toronto expects every day.

Across Line 5 Eglinton and Line 6 Finch West, for example, operational changes and updated transit signal priority were implemented to improve travel times and reliability. The outcome of these changes has resulted in average round-trip times in the p.m. peak reduced by 17 minutes on Line 5 and by 30 minutes on Line 6. The TTC continues to work with the City and Metrolinx to provide further improvements.

I would like to take this opportunity to extend my sincere thanks to every TTC employee who helped make the tournament a success and who continues to keep Toronto moving.

Mandeep S. Lali
​Chief Executive Officer
​July 2026

Published in the CEO’s Report for July, which offers a rotating review of service delivery performance across the TTC's transit modes. The current edition highlights streetcar service, featuring key performance indicators (KPIs) through the end of May 2026.