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U.S. Department of Transportation U.S. Department of Transportation Icon United States Department of Transportation United States Department of Transportation

PUBLIC TRANSIT

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

PUBLIC TRANSIT

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U.S. Transit Ridership (monthly data, not seasonally adjusted)

U.S. Transit Ridership (monthly data, not seasonally adjusted). If you are a user with a disability and cannot view this image, please call 800-853-1351 or email answers@bts.gov for further assistance.

Public transportation includes transit bus, transit rail, commuter rail, trolleys, and several demand-responsive services.

Transit Ridership Mar-01 Mar-02
Unlinked trips (in thousands) 827,248 801,345
Transit ridership percent change from same month previous year    2.22   -3.13

NOTE: The current value is compared to the value from the same period in the previous year to account for seasonality.

Data for the last three years are preliminary.

According to the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), an unlinked transit trip is a trip on one transit vehicle. A person riding one vehicle from origin to destination takes one unlinked trip; a person who transfers to a second vehicle takes two unlinked trips; a person who transfers to a third vehicle takes three unlinked trips. A linked trip includes all segments on all vehicles used to travel from origin to destination. APTA estimates that the number of people riding transit on an average weekday is 45 percent of the number of unlinked transit passenger trips.

A trendline has been provided for U.S. transit ridership. The trend has been calculated through a statistical procedure called Structural Modeling, in which the time series under study is decomposed into seasonal, trend and irregular components. For further information on this statistical procedure, see: S.J. Koopman, et al., Structural Time Series Analyser, Modeller and Predictor (STAMP), London: Timberlake Consultants Ltd. , 2000

SOURCE: American Public Transportation Association, APTA Quarterly Transit Ridership Report, available at: http://www.apta.com/stats/ridershp/index.htm