Increased ridership?

I just have to wonder, in the past few weeks with the gas prices about $1 more than they were 3 or 4 weeks ago, have people been taking the train more as opposed to driving? If so, has it been a big increase in the number of people commuting?

Too soon to tell. Ridership figures for September will be available in mid-October.

Jim

MN Jim wrote:Too soon to tell. Ridership figures for September will be available in mid-October.

Jim

These figures are always a bit skewed due to school kids on the trains.

With the TVM's online and all the ticket agents machines being online, they should be able to get the numbers rather quickly. Whether they want to post the numbers is completelly different. The monthly's may not increase but one-way and weekly tickets might be a good indicator.

The reports are run monthly. Even if you wanted to run one on a shorter time period, since last year's numbers were run for the whole month, you have nothing to compare them with.

And you forget that some people still do purchase their tickets on board. Those numbers are calculated manually, on a monthly basis as well.

That said, don't be surprised if there's little or no spike in ridership. The price of gas shocked us all last week when it shot up, but people get used to these things real quick. Those who prefer to use a car will continue to use their car.

Jim

Conductors cash fare reports are to be submitted within a 48 hour window. So getting those numbers are not that difficult. You may be right there may not be an increase. Another way to tell would be at the parking lots of the outlying stations. The lack of parking would be a good indicator of a "spike" in ridership. Those numbers would be difficult because the way Connecticut and NY ownership of the parking lots. I would think that the MTA and CDOT would want to give out these numbers to the general public at least as a public awareness of alternatives to get to work.

cash fare reporst are noit really any indication of ridership anymore. Most cash fare reports are step ups - there are the occasional full blown ticket sales and the odd LOL (Little Old Lady) tickets sold.

Cash fare reports DO NOT take into accoutn the revenue collected by way of regular ticket collection nor does it know if a monthly,weekly, 10 trip rider is on the train