Urban public transit, April 2025
Released: 2025-06-19
Highlights
In April, Canada's urban transit ridership reached 132.5 million passenger trips, recovering 84.2% of the pre-COVID-19 pandemic level from April 2019.
Data on total passenger trips and operating revenue for selected urban transit agencies are available in table 23-10-0307-01.
Ridership edges up
In April 2025, transit riders took an estimated 132.5 million trips on urban transit systems in Canada, up slightly (+0.3%, or 400,000 trips) from April 2024.
Despite little change in Canada's employment and a 18.1% year-over-year drop in gasoline prices during April, passenger traffic recovered 84.2% of the pre-pandemic level reported in April 2019 (157.3 million trips). While this was among the highest ridership recovery rates since the pandemic, there were about 24.8 million fewer rides in April 2025 than in April 2019.
On a monthly basis, transit ridership edged down 2.9% from March to April 2025. This was much less than the average decrease (-6.0%) during the same March-to-April period in the two years (2018 and 2019) prior to the pandemic.
Financial situation steady
In April 2025, transit agency operating revenue (excluding subsidies) was up 3.3% from the same month in 2024, totalling $327.0 million, albeit $9.9 million less than in April 2019, before the pandemic.
Chart 1
Urban public transit operating revenue and passenger trips, monthly, 2019 to 2025
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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 and updated 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 prior to 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.
The Transportation Data and Information Hub, featuring data from Statistics Canada, Transport Canada and partners, provides Canadians with online access to comprehensive statistics and indicators for 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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