Capital Health has begun using a shuttle service for employees to help cope with the transit strike.

“It began running this morning,” says John Gillis, communications advisor at Capital Health.

The 45-passenger shuttle runs from the West End Mall parking lot area between Tim Horton's and Wal-Mart, and drops riders off at the Halifax Infirmary.

Those are the only two stops the shuttle makes.

The shuttle costs passengers $2.50 per trip.

“We’re selling tickets at the gift shops at the hospitals,” Gillis says. The shuttle will be available for “Capital Health and IWK” employees exclusively.

“It’s a pilot project right now,” Gillis says. “With the ticket sales, we’re hoping it’s cost neutral, it’ll pay for itself.”

“It’s something that we’ve been looking at for some time, whether it was possible to do something like this,” Gillis says. “With the transit strike happening now, it provided more urgency to get it going.”

The original purpose of the shuttle is to enhance transit services for staff and to free up parking spaces for patients who come to the hospitals. A regular issue for the QEII hospital campus has been balancing parking for staff and patients.

The transit strike expedited the shuttle’s use Gillis says.

The shuttle service vehicles and drivers are through Perry Rand Transportation Group Limited.

“At Capital Health we have about 12,000 employees, that’s spread over a number of sites,” Gillis says. “I think in order for the service to break even we would need 125 round trips per day.”

Gillis says Capital Health has committed to keep the shuttle going until at least the end of March, whether or not the transit strike lasts that long. If the shuttle sees enough demand, Capital Health plans to keep the service running.

Capital Health was not planning on releasing this information publicly, but staff heard through emails. The health district also posted about the service on their Facebook page.

Stay tuned for more details.