JTA Ridership Figures

[tufsu1]

Bus ridership was down by less than .5%...but as the article states, the actual # of people riding may not be down and could actually be up (just taking fewer trips)....compare that with automobile usage, where traffic counts all over Florida went down by almost 5% in 2008 and likely didn't go back up in 2009.

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-02-01/story/youre_just_a_rider_to_jta_jacksonville_ridership_count_is_a_mystery

Gotta love the T-U....great writing!

[Ocklawaha]

TUFSU, I think Larry did a fantastic job of getting it right in this article. We both know this is not an easy business for anyone without the "inner calling." There are way too many years of nautical, railroad, trail and highway, teamster and military terms and concepts to be sorted out by a layman. He seems to understand that riders passenger trips are two different things, and he is equally dismayed that NOBODY knows the details on passengers. I think he came across this mystery while researching another story, and found it riveting.

Actually there IS a way to calculate person trips, as well as multiple trips per person. I'll keep y'all posted.

OCKLAWAHA

[tufsu1]

I have no real problem with Larry's article...my issue is with the headline and tease sentence.

Although I must admit that Blaylock admitting that 342,000-427,000 people a month being too high seems very odd....if you assume that 2% of Jax. residents take the bus, than that would be 17,000 people per day....multiplied by 22 times a month, you get 374,0000...plus there are folks from other counties and visitors that use the trolley and skyway downtown.

[Ocklawaha]

CHECK THIS OUT Y'ALL!

I have no real problem with Larry's article...my issue is with the headline and tease sentence.

Although I must admit that Blaylock admitting that 342,000-427,000 people a month being too high seems very odd....if you assume that 2% of Jax. residents take the bus, than that would be 17,000 people per day....multiplied by 22 times a month, you get 374,0000...plus there are folks from other counties and visitors that use the trolley and skyway downtown.

Not to mention the fact that JTA says it's passed the 10,000,000 riders a year milestone. If Mike Blaylock is correct, then they are substantially below that last year.

Using 380,000 as the average per month (split between Blaylock's high and low estimate) x 12 months 4,560,000 passengers per year on 60 routes! FYI folks GAINESVILLE  hit the 4,000,000 mark in the last quarter of 09 alone,  with only 37 routes!

OCKLAWAHA

[tufsu1]

no Ock...you're confusing riders with people...I'm saying that it seems entirely reasonable to have close to 400,000 people using the system when there are over 850,000 riders a month....especially when considering that seniors are riding for free and are not being counted.

Based on those figures, JTA is getting over 10 million riders a year....and yes, Gainesville is higher because they count all the buses that circulate on the UF campus.

[exnewsman]

TUFSU1 - you have it right. Riders/passenger trips versus people. The point earlier about McDonalds is true - they care about how many hamburgers they sell... not how many people are buying those hamburgers. This is true with most business entities.

In public transit (bus, train, trolley, streetcar, whatever) you have to figure that "most" people are using the system more than once each month. So the number of riders (or trips) will of course be higher than the number of people taking those rides/trips. And if all the transit agencies are using the same method to calculate, they why all the flurry about JTA?

If JTA is comparing ridership numbers from year to year - and using the same methodology each time -then what's the issue here?

Also - Jacksonville public transit is FREE for seniors. In most other cities they pay some fee - be it $.50/ride or whatever.

[buckethead]

Perhaps it (comparing apples to apples, and understanding the definition of apple) can give laypersons such as myself, the knowledge of how the numbers are driven. Public mass transit needs to be understood by the public.

[tufsu1]

because you cant grow if you don't know who isnt riding, newsman.

no transit system knows that exactly

[tufsu1]

wow...how prophetic!

[CS Foltz]

I am just a poor dumb taxpayer but I have to ask............why not use something that makes sense? Ridership miles versus transit miles versus bus miles is confusing not to mention ridiculus! Come up with a common denominator that is a black and white number such as .... one rider per mile or two per mile. A simple mechanical counter operated by the driver and spot checked should give a real life number to just what is taking place! Let me see JTA cook those numbers!

[tufsu1]

the common denominator used by ALL transit agencies is ridership...plain and simple!

[tufsu1]

the common denominator used by ALL transit agencies is ridership...plain and simple!

and?

meaning that while it is useful to know what JTA's ridership is (and why it isn't higher), it is not to to try and discern the number of people using the system.

[tufsu1]

Guess I just can't explain it to you...maybe someone from a transit agency can.

[Charles Hunter]

Let's turn the question around ... how would you track how many people ride transit in a given day?  Someone who lives in Moncrief and works in Southpoint, rides one bus downtown, catches another to Southpoint, then reverses in the afternoon.  One person, and if I understand the article = 4 "trips".  How would you tell that person from the one who got on at the same stop, but works downtown, and got a ride home with a friend?  I don't think its a matter of transit agencies (as the article and tufsu said, they all count the same way) are trying to deceive anyone, there just isn't a good way to track the number of individuals.  At least until our Overlords implant tracking chips in our hands or foreheads. 

[stjr]

Multiple sets of books is a specialty at JTA.  They already used this "fuzzy accounting" to perfection with bus shelters in counting them and calculating maintenance costs to get their way with advertising.

The issue isn't simply determining how to measure usage.  It's that JTA appears to exploit these un-standardized transit accounting habits by using whatever set of numbers conveniently suits their current purposes and does little or nothing to clarify what they really are communicating.

Just another step toward decreasing credibility with the public they serve.