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It's still far below 2019. I'll take the positive spin though because as dumb as it sounds, hearing those percentages probably would convince people that more people are taking it, making it safer for them to take it, and creates a feedback loop.
When I started this post this morning I start off by saying: "I've been finding that trying to decipher anything ridership related from ETS is... painful."
I thought at the time I had an answer to why the 2019 ridership is still quite higher than the 2024 ridership. Unfortunately, when I went to do my due diligence I took down my own theory and left this post frustrated with it until I got back to it this evening.
Firstly, I am impressed that ridership increased for May over April, when historically there would be a decrease due to the end of post-secondary.
So, yes I am not a fan of ETS saying they had 5.3 million riders in May and that is up 130% over 2021 I think it a bit misleading, especially when we should be looking back to pre-Covid numbers. In which case, from the figures above, the numbers are 600,000+ short of the May 2019 numbers.
So... I checked the open data portal figuring that had been update for ridership. I was more so curious about March data, as that would be in Q1 2024 APTA Ridership Report.
ETS March 2019- 7,787,312
ETS March 2024- 4,986,123
ETS to APTA March 2019- 12,259,700
ETS to APTA March 2024- 8,177,200
I thought there might have been a difference in metric ETS reported back in 2019, but no. Regardless if you look at the ETS numbers, or the ETS numbers reported to APTA, There was still a significant difference in March.
I guess the positive is that for May the difference is 600,000ish vs. 2.8 million in March. I guess we'll see if that trend continues.
I did previously note, ETS changed the way they track ridership in 2019 from using fare product sales to APC data. They don't note when that change occurred. I assume it was for the entire year, so, that means 2019 and 2024 should have had their counts generated with the same methodology.
There is a note on the Open Data portal that ridership is counted as "Total number of bus and LRT origin-to-destination trips, regardless of number of transfers/boardings required to complete the trip. Also known as "linked-trips""
Given the significantly higher numbers reported to APTA vs. what is ETS is reporting to council and the public, I can only assume that they must be reporting unlinked trips to APTA.
Another thing I am now curious about is where does On Demand ridership fit in? It is reported separately on the Open Data portal, which makes me think it might not be included in the regular ridership totals? At the same time, APTA has a category for Demand Response, but ETS doesn't have that category on the APTA report so I'm curious if and how ETS is reporting that ridership to APTA.
I guess what I should really do is just email the City and ask for clarification between the difference between what ETS is reporting and what ETS is apparently reporting to APTA.
Link to the Q1 2024 APTA report:
https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/2024-Q1-Ridership-APTA.pdf
Page 38 for ETS's numbers. I am also curious why the quarterly change for both LRT and buses was 10.22% That seems highly unlikely unless ETS was just extrapolating numbers or something between the two modes.