LACMTA Bus Ridership Update – January 2015

Another three months has passed, so it’s time for another LACMTA bus ridership update. Apologies for the slow posting and delayed updates; March ended up being a very busy month; hopefully things will be back to normal now.

First, the raw data. Highlighted cells represent the top 10 months for that route (since January 2009).

Here are the 12-month rolling averages.

Ridership from November to January is always a little goofy due to holidays. With the exception of the Silver Line, which continues to improve, all routes saw a decrease in ridership. For Vermont & Western, this continues previous trends. With Venice, Santa Monica, Wilshire, and the Orange Line, these dips are small enough that no larger trend appears.

Here’s the Saturday and Sunday rolling 12-month averages.

Saturday and Sunday ridership largely reflects the weekday trends.

Lastly, here’s the percentage of trips on each arterial being served by the rapid route.

The share of riders served by the rapid routes continues to slowly rise on most corridors. I wouldn’t read too much into the spikes in Venice and Santa Monica data, because they were caused by large drops in local route ridership on those streets. However, it is interesting that the rapid routes were more resilient to ridership changes – the ridership losses came disproportionately from local routes.

As always, it’s hard to say what’s causing ridership changes. Possibilities include the improving economy making cars more affordable, cheaper gas, and Metro’s recent fare increase.

Metrolink ridership next, I swear, and don’t think I’ve forgotten about SF Valley bus ridership!