Urban public transit, February 2024
Released: 2024-04-19
Highlights
In February, ridership on urban public transit networks in Canada reached 129.6 million passenger trips.
Passenger volumes recovered over 84% of the February 2019 level, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ridership recovery continues
Canada's urban transit agencies provided an estimated 129.6 million passenger trips in February, an increase of 18.9% (+20.6 million) from February 2023, representing almost three years of consecutive monthly year-over-year increases since April 2021.
Rising employment in February 2024, along with continued rapid population growth, may have helped nudge transit passenger recovery to a new high—84.3% of its pre-pandemic ridership from February 2019. Despite this, there were still 24.2 million fewer rides in February 2024 compared with the same month in 2019.
February 2024 saw a 2.0% increase in ridership from January, driven by large monthly increases in the west (Calgary Transit, Alberta +11.2% and TransLink, British Columbia +7.8%).
Finances improving
In February, transit agency operating revenue (excluding subsidies) totalled $306.2 million—an increase of 16.7%, or $43.9 million, from February 2023. However, it was still $28.5 million below the pre-pandemic level in February 2019.
Chart 1
Urban public transit operating revenue and passenger trips, monthly, 2019 to 2024
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Note to readers
Statistics Canada is publishing more detail from the Monthly Passenger Bus and Urban Transit Survey. The new table 23-10-0307-01—Passenger bus and urban transit statistics, by urban transit agency—includes operating revenue and ridership at the city level for selected transit agencies. Statistics Canada appreciates the cooperation of the 15 transit agencies in making this information available to Canadians.
Survey data are revised on a monthly basis to reflect new information.
The data in this release are not seasonally adjusted.
This survey collects data on operating revenue (excluding subsidies) and the number of passenger trips from a panel of urban transit companies that represents at least 75% of revenue in each province and territory. Note that the panel is adjusted annually to maintain the 75% coverage and could differ slightly from what it was in the same month the previous year.
One-time payments from secondary and post-secondary institutions for academic-year student passes are typically reported as revenue during the early fall and early winter months.
Data before January 2017 can be found in table 23-10-0078-01.
Random tabular adjustment
The random tabular adjustment (RTA) technique, which aims to increase the amount of data made available to users while protecting the confidentiality of respondents, was applied to the totals of the Monthly Passenger Bus and Urban Transit Survey.
Using RTA, Statistics Canada identifies sensitive data and randomly adjusts values rather than suppressing them. The size of the adjustment is calculated to protect respondent confidentiality.
For more information on RTA, please refer to the article "Random Tabular Adjustment is here!," now available as part of the StatCan Blog.
The Transportation Data and Information Hub, a web portal developed jointly by Statistics Canada and Transport Canada, provides Canadians with online access to comprehensive statistics and measures on the country's transportation sector.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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