Wifi on buses would cost taxpayers $1.4 million a year: report

Winnipeg’s experiment with free WiFi on city buses could be over.

The pilot project that saw WiFi on 12 buses ends this month.

A report to the city’s innovation committee says the objectives of the trial were achieved.

“Over the course of any given month, we have generally seen 10,000-12,000 unique users, and on any given day, we have had approximately 700 unique users,” states the report.

It says in order for this to be installed permanently on transit’s entire fleet, taxpayers would be on the hook for $1.4 million to $1.9 million a year.

Councillors on the innovation committee accepted the report as information, meaning there is no plan at this time to move ahead with the project.

The pilot was well under budget, with $232,000 of the $300,000 budget left unspent.