Dive Brief:
- Public transit ridership across all modes recovered to 79% of pre-pandemic levels in 2023, the American Public Transportation Association reported Monday.
- Transit ridership grew 16% year over year in 2023, with smaller cities recovering ridership better than larger cities, the APTA reports states.
- But stark differences emerged in ridership across modes, with bus transit reaching 81% of 2019 ridership as of December 2023 and commuter rail ridership lagging at 65%. Light rail recovered to 73% of 2019 levels and heavy rail — which refers to subway or metro systems — achieved 70% recovery.
Dive Insight:
In the pre-pandemic year of 2019, people took 9.9 billion trips on public transportation, according to APTA. Amid lockdowns and the rise of remote work, total transit trips plummeted by 40% the following year to 5.9 billion. Last year, APTA reported that transit riders took 7.1 billion trips, still nearly 28% below the pre-pandemic norm.
Remote and hybrid work has led to reduced overall office occupancy, impacting public transit use for daily commuting. According to Kastle, a property technology firm, average U.S. office occupancy is currently hovering around 50% of pre-pandemic levels.
Transit ridership recovery is due to non-commuting trips, APTA says, along with the rebound of non-office jobs such as those in restaurants and bars. “Average bus rider demographics generally align with those of restaurant or other late-night employees, indicating a significant reason for bus ridership increases leading overall transit recovery,” the APTA report states.
Cities with populations of 100,000 to 500,000 saw ridership recovering to 79% of 2019 levels in the fourth quarter of 2023, while larger cities recovered to 74%, according to the APTA. That’s because smaller cities tend to serve fewer riders with the option of teleworking, APTA says.
“Success in ridership recovery has been dependent on transit service delivery and reliability and external factors, such as the makeup of local economies,” said APTA President and CEO Paul Skoutelas in a statement.
Correction: The previous subhead on this story misstated public transportation's ridership recovery in 2023. It recovered to 79% of pre-pandemic levels.
