Commuters got a break during the month of January with free rides on Mondays and Fridays with the On It Transit Service.

The Regional Transportation Manager for the system,  Ettore Iannacito, says it went very well.

"The promo was really geared towards people who might not otherwise have used the service, or were thinking of using the service but would like to try it out first," he says. "Ridership actually tripled in some cases and those free rides did translate into some of those people actually using the service between Monday and Friday, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday."

Iannacito says when they started they were in the mid-teens for riders and now they're up to about 80 so the prom was a great way to get people to try the service out and perhaps become customers.

He says they expected the service was going to take at least a year to get a really got foothold and so far they've been very pleased with the results.

Iannacito says they may do a similar promotion sometime down the road because once people try the service they like it and stay with it.

There are four trips in the morning to the Calgary Bridlewood C-Train station and four trips back from the city to High River, Okotoks and Black Diamond late in the afternoon.