TransLink overall ridership up, efficiency improving

A few weeks ago, I posted about TransLink ridership statistics that were made available as part of the American Public Transit Association’s quarterly information release. The numbers from TransLink’s were for rail-based and SeaBus services. The numbers showed that ridership for SkyTrain was up 16% while ridership for SeaBus and West Coast Express was down.

TransLink has recently released their annual statutory report which contains overall ridership statistics. The numbers show some good trends for transit in our region.

	2016	2015	% Change
Scheduled Ridership*	384,826	362,921	6.0%
Access Ridership*	1,366	1,340	1.9%
Schedule Operating Cost per Vehicle Km	$5.97	$5.89	1.4%
Access Operating Cost per Service Hour	$89.68	$87.90	2.0%
Schedule Farebox Recovery	55%	51.8%	8.2%
Overall Customer Satisfaction Score	60	57	n/a

Overall scheduled transit ridership was up in 2016; people are taking more transit trips in our region, and those trips are growing at a faster rate than population growth. Access transit aka HandyDART ridership was flat.

Operating cost recovery has also increased between 2015 and 2016. This means that fares are paying for more of the costs to deliver scheduled transit service.

Operating cost per total vehicle kilometres travelled has slightly increased for regular transit service at the rate of inflation. Access transit operating cost per service hour increased which is to be expected.

TransLink’s overall customer service score has also improved between 2015 and 2016.

Overall, it has been a good year for TransLink. The agency normally releases bus service performance information later during the year. It will be interesting to see where bus ridership is increasing and decreases, as bus service is the backbone of the transit network in our region, especially in the South of Fraser.

* per thousand.