Whitehorse Transit's schedules for express service for the Canada Winter Games are set.

At a noon meeting of senior management and council at city hall Wednesday, Whitehorse Transit manager Dave Muir said the express route testing that was done over the Christmas season has prepared his department for Games service.

The Christmas express service, he said, was well-received and could provide a model for future transit service.

'We want to look at this for the future of Whitehorse Transit,' Muir said.

The express route test runs, which ran before Christmas, saw the city upgrade its service by providing six runs which began and ended at the Canada Games Centre and a downtown loop.

The runs, Muir said in a December interview, were based on recommendations from the Transit Task Force.

The express loop routes, which begin and end at the Games centre, served McIntyre, Takhini, Hillcrest, Crestview, Porter Creek and Riverdale.

Whitehorse Transit's John Mahoney told council Wednesday the runs were, for the most part, well received by transit users.

He said this morning his department made a few adjustments to the express runs which will enable the transit service to stick to its one-bus-every-30-minute schedule.

'We eliminated the Crestview route and combined it with the Porter Creek route,' he said.

'We've also added some extra coverage.'

The new routes, Mahoney said, will include Riverdale, McIntyre/Copper Ridge, Hillcrest, Takhini/College, Porter Creek and the downtown loop.

All the routes will use the Canada Games Centre as their hub, he added.

In order to ensure that the routes can keep on schedule, he said, each route will combine its operations with another.

Once a driver has finished the Hillcrest route, Mahoney said as an example, he/she would then return to the Games centre, then go on to do the Takhini route.

'There's another bus which will be doing the exact same thing, but going the other way,' he added.

The routes which will be working together, Mahoney said, will be: Riverdale and McIntyre/Copper Ridge, Hillcrest and Takhini/College, and Porter Creek and the downtown loop.

To ensure all drivers get their scheduled breaks, he added, there will be a floating driver to take the wheel in place of the operator who is resting.

Muir told council his department is sticking to the $80,000 council had budgeted for the increase of service during the Games.

Details for the busing schedules will be made public next week.