JTA Ridership Figures

[stjr]

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".  

Charles, if JTA sold numbered (using scanable bar codes or magnetic stripes) "trip" tickets/passes, they should be able to easily compute trips and riders.  Airlines do it everyday with passengers connecting flights.

In your example, they could sell a single transfer (two segment) "trip" ticket good for Moncrief to Southpoint with a connection Downtown.  The ticket (or, perhaps, perforated tear-off segments) would be redeemed/run over a scanner (possibly connected via a wireless network to JTA's data center) at the initiation of each segment of the trip crediting that portion off of the amount associated with its encoded number.  Unless JTA scanned the ticket upon exiting by the rider, they might not know how many passenger miles were put on, but at least they would have some idea that people getting on in Moncrief have an interest in taking buses headed toward Southpoint.

Such tickets would be issued by ticket machines that accept the change/currency or credit/debit/other plastic cards (in addition to the scanable tickets) riders present upon stepping on the bus.  Riders would indicate how many segments they wish to travel.  Better yet, the machines could issue round trip and/or multitrip single or multi segment tickets all at once saving steps when the rider makes the return trip.  And, seniors would be issued free passes (still scanned as paid passes are) based on a scan of their drivers license or state ID computing their age.

Seems a system like this would give JTA pretty good info on ridership numbers and habits and expedite their accounting.  Hey, they could even sell ads/coupons on the back side of tickets for riders to use after making their trips just like admission tickets to sporting and concert events do.  Might be able to build bus shelters this way instead!

[Ocklawaha]

Jacksonville's little sister KNOWS how to spell BUS!

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.

Correction, I'm not confusing riders with users (passengers), but it is obvious from the comments I repeated on the Blaylock numbers that somebody is VERY CONFUSED.

Since we are looking at Transit and Hamburgers, consider a car pulls up at the drive through window, one person orders for the 3 lunch hour buddies. The order is bagged, one got a single burger and another got a triple burger, while the last guy got 3 regular small burgers... Tomorrow you scan the tickets and record the numbers in the computer, does that ticket indicate ONE SALE? or does it indicate 6 SALES? Maybe 6 customers? Maybe 1 very hungry customer?  Nobody really knows at Mickey D's either. What Mickey D's has that most "JTA'S" don't have is a staff of expert number crunches that stand in endless surveys, call centers, customer satisfaction forms, complaint forms, comments, and tweak the operation to produce the most burgers in a day.

In transit we would LIKE to produce the most rides per day, and like the burger joint, we really don't care if it's 100 rides and 100 people, or 100 rides and 25 people, the money is from the 100 rides, that is where the "Plain and Simple" comes into play.

Saying there is no way to track these numbers is just as bogus as confusing all the counting methods and calling it "slight of hand," which it is NOT! As point out, from simple counters, to electronic data entry, transfers with automatic carbon copy's or stubs, and fare-less buses with all fare collection done via automated machine, or fare free and roll it into taxes such as city parks or library's with a free trip record card.  Don't think passengers will bite? I'm sure as hell I can get us accurate numbers and many new choice riders, I'll be talking to JTA soon.

Finally, TUFSU1, sorry friend, you are misinformed about Gainesville RTS. The numbers for the system are broken into two groups, the main group is for the Regional Transit buses, and the smaller group is campus circulators.
In FY 2009 they posted 7,110,777 riders on the regional side, and 1,829,203 riders on the Campus Routes, plus toss in another 75,663 special service rides, for a grand combined total of 9,015,643 for the year, which university or no university is a STUNNINGLY excellent performance in a city of that size.


OCKLAWAHA

[Charles Hunter]

Ock, don't UF students ride FREE anywhere in the system, not just on campus?  As you have said, ridership would go up here if JTA went fare-free.

Wonder if Gainesville RTS knows how many "people" ride - or are they guility of "slight of hand" with the numbers, too.  Surely, with all those smart university types they have figured this out.   

[CS Foltz]

Well I have been following this with great interest...............JTA is so used to cooking their books, I don't think they have a hoot in hell of coming up with a number that is accurate and concise, what ever number they need........poof.....there it is! The way things are set up, the answer will allways be just what they want to substantiate, no matter if it bus's, BRT or more concrete! I think they need some oversight and some goals set in concrete.............don't produce, good bye!

[tufsu1]

Ock...I am not misinformed about the RTS figures in Gainesville as I've been working on projects there for about 10 years....they've done a great job there but it all stems from policies at UF

Charles is correct that UF students ride the bus for "free"...as they pay a transportation fee that covers that service.

So 2 million of the 9 million RTS trips (or riders, Stephen) are campus circulator trips...but do some research...you will find that before they instituted the "fare-free" system, their ridership was around 1 million passengers.....and today, many of the routes on the eastside (non-student area) still run on 30-60 minute headways with not much increase in riders.

In addition, many of the routes were reconfigured to serve campus and the adjacent communities...and they ALL BUT BANNED PARKING FOR STUDENTS ON CAMPUS!

[tufsu1]

Here's the info. on parking fees and restrictions at UF

http://www.parking.ufl.edu/pages/parkingdecpr.htm
http://www.parking.ufl.edu/lifted_parking_restrictions.htm

Bottom line...one of the most important factors in making transit successful is minimizing the amount of free parking provided!

[cline]

or making sure that the people cant really afford cars. (like the students) and making most of the city walkable.  The only place that the parking is restricted is the place the everyone has already spent 20 thousand dollars to get to.  This argument incidentally, is insane.

Not really.  Pretty much everyone I knew at UF that lived off campus had cars but left them parked due to lack of parking on campus.  We rode the bus instead.  I even had a commuter pass and still rode the bus because if you didn't get there by about 8am, you weren't getting a spot.

[tufsu1]

All I know Stephen is that undergraduate students at UF not living on campus can only park on the outskirts...and they pay for the right to do so.

And since that policy and the "fare-free" system for students were instituted, ridership on RTS has gone from 1 million to 10 million.

Maybe someone who wet to school at UF would like to chime in on this.

[fsujax]

I believe the same thing happens in Tallahasee. The parking policy is not a strict as UF's, but I used to ride the bus for free around Tallahassee.

[tufsu1]

You cannot distill a market place policy by using a post parket dynamic.  People have already paid the Tuition and therefore already committed to the product.  Their choosing period is over.

fine...so maybe I agree that parking downtown should be free so that retail could cmpete on the same level as suburban retail....but hardly anyone rides transit to suburban retail.

While free parking may be good for businnesses, it is bad for transit!

[cline]

Their choosing period is over.

Is it?  You could choose to walk, ride your bike, call a taxi or wake up early enough to get a spot in one of the commuter lots.  There are still choices.

[tufsu1]

You can punish people into a behavior, but you can reward people into a lifestyle.

You can also do both...which is what I am advocating!

[cline]

.

I think the problem with transit is its timidity, to be honest.  It has so many natural advantages over car ownership that if it was in any way well planned and effective people would choose it over driving.

I think some would choose transit over driving but others wouldn't.  I'm pretty sure in one of the Springfield threads mtrain basically said there was no way he was giving up his auto.  You would choose transit- I probably would too.  I think the important thing is to give people mobility options.  As it stands now in Jax, if you don't have a car it can be very difficult to get around.  That's not a good thing.

[exnewsman]

Thats what ridership surveys are for

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

no transit system knows that exactly

[Ocklawaha]

You cannot distill a market place policy by using a post parket dynamic.  People have already paid the Tuition and therefore already committed to the product.  Their choosing period is over.

fine...so maybe I agree that parking downtown should be free so that retail could cmpete on the same level as suburban retail....but hardly anyone rides transit to suburban retail.

While free parking may be good for businnesses, it is bad for transit!

Not if you MAKE the "free" parking PAY for the mass transit...

Yeah, I know... So THINK about that!

OCKLAWAHA