American Public Transportation Association (APTA) recently partnered with the Transit app to develop the APTA Ridership Trends dashboard.
“APTA is excited to announce this new partnership with the Transit app,“ APTA President and CEO Paul P. Skoutelas said. “Agencies around the country need up-to-date information to help them make critical business decisions during this unprecedented pandemic. This new partnership will benefit our members and riders all around the nation.”
The resource provides current, week-by-week public transit ridership estimates for agencies nationwide. It is available at www.transitapp.com/APTA.
“We work hand-in-hand with transit agencies around the country every day,” David Block-Schachter, Transit’s chief business officer, said. “Agencies are looking for new, faster ways to gather data in order to respond to rider demand. The number of people using our app for transit information is a great barometer for estimating overall ridership in near real-time. Together with APTA, we’ve been able to refine this data to provide insights to the entire industry.”
The scope of engagement involves weekly estimating values statistically modeled based on measures of Transit app usage. App usage is attributed to a particular transit agency if that agency’s service appears as a nearby option for the user when they open the app.
Usage statistics count how often the app is opened, which officials indicating the action provides a measure of demand for public transit while also considering additional factors such as regional trends and the current severity of the pandemic.