Like in previous years, I was able to obtain MiWay's passenger counter data through FOI. This is the 6th year I've done this and to their credit, MiWay staff have been accommodating and efficient with my requests for data.
Below I'm going to start off with a high-level system overview with some general observations, and future posts will dive into other areas.
There are a few things worth noting:
- Data presented is for the October-December 2024 service period, not full year averages. Because of this, data elsewhere covering different time periods or averaged out may have some variance.
- Data comparison to previous years is based on the same service period in that year.
- Data is from automated passenger counters on board MiWay buses
- Data shown is boardings (unlinked trips) and not revenue ridership (linked trips). There is not always correlation between unlinked and linked trips due to this.
The below images are imbedded for convenience. Please do not quote them in replies.
Boardings per clock hour for Weekday, Saturday, Sunday comparing 2019, 2023, 2024.
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Weekday boardings per route - Orange table is 2024 vs 2023 boardings, Blue table is 2024 vs 2019 boardings
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Saturday boardings per route - Orange table is 2024 vs 2023 boardings, Blue table is 2024 vs 2019 boardings
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Sunday boardings per route - Orange table is 2024 vs 2023 boardings, Blue table is 2024 vs 2019 boardings
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Some initial observations for now:
- Overall system boardings on weekdays in 2024 tracked closely with 2019 and 2023 levels, with the exception of AM Peak which continues to lag 2019 levels.
- Saturday and Sunday boardings declined from the high level of 2023, but are still up significantly compared to 2019. Long-term context matters.
- Notwithstanding the above, ridership during early AM and evening periods is significantly higher than 2019 levels across all service days.
- Some routes are seeing boardings level off after high growth during and after the COVID period, particularly routes that served employment areas and colleges. Again, long-term context matters. To give but one example, 5 Dixie saw a ~12% decline in weekday boardings over 2023, but compared to 2019, boardings are still up about 10%.
- The work restrictions on international students, as well as the immigration changes being announced, may be having an impact on the trends in boardings especially on weekdays. Weekends are a little tougher to explain, it could just be a expected drop off after a surge, could be the previously mentioned restrictions on students/immigration, could be the effects of inflation and economic anxiety having people choosing to cut down leisure trips.
- In the short to medium term if the boardings on the corridors that saw huge surges in ridership (Dixie, Derry, Tomken, Courtneypark, McLaughlin, Mavis etc.) holds it may actually be a good thing as these corridors have had so much service added, and MiWay can focus on improving service elsewhere in the network, especially in areas that have not had pre-covid levels restored.
- One other trend that is obvious is the lagging boardings on Hurontario, Dundas and the Transitway corridors. All of these corridors still have not returned to pre-covid ridership levels and given the massive investments in higher order transit for these corridors, is a cause for concern.
- More to come.