Transit Ridership

It wasn't so much that the numbers were fake, but they were estimates, and naturally it's in the best interest in all involved if you play the opposite of the price is right (close as you can without going under). The state always employed tabulaters, too, who ran more accurate numbers than the crew with multiple things to worry about guessing how many tickets and passes were checked between all of them. Within the last 10-15 years, up until March 2020, ridership had only increased. I don't know of any data that indicated a decline, but if there was it wasn't taken seriously.

There’s definitely been a decrease in ridership since the pandemic started. However, recently it has picked up slightly, but not at pre pandemic levels. I can prove it because I was a rider on the nec and half of the time it was crowded with both providence and local passengers. Even during peak rushour on the wickford express trains, it was crowded on the 4:52pm one. The one before wasn’t too bad though.

Re: MBTA Commuter Rail ridership, I Googled "mbta commuter rail ridership" and the first link that popped up was the MBTA Performance Dashboard at https://www.mbtabackontrack.com/. So I click on that and get "403 Forbidden." Is the MBTA no longer publishing its ridership dashboard info?

And on a related note, from this November 21, 2021 Boston.com article, I'm under the impression that MBTA commuter rail schedules should be showing some sort of crowding factor projection for each scheduled train and yet I don't see the 1 , 2, or 3 "people" icons. Am I looking in the wrong place?

Passengers can check the online train schedule at mbta.com/schedules/commuter-rail for the commuter rail seat availability, which is regularly updated to reflect a trip’s typical ridership based on automated and conductor data from the past 14 to 30 days. The levels are constantly updated, though transit officials noted that the new ridership information is not real-time seat availability. Due to the nature of public transportation, trains may operate at a lighter or fuller capacity than typical on any given day, officials said.

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/ ... ag-a-seat/

The dashboard is still there, link you posted worked fine for me.

As for the ridership on the schedule, I checked it right after I saw that article and it was working, but I don't see it now. I wonder if the adjustments they made for the temporary service changes due to short staffing screwed something up on the back end.

Trinnau - thanks for verifying the MBTA Dashboard link works for you. Unfortunately for my Windows 10 laptop it continues to give me "403 Forbidden" response with Chrome, Edge, and Firefox browsers.

But I can access the site with my iPhone. What I see is the commuter rail ridership data has not been updated since October 2021 so it does not reflect Omicron impact?

The service cuts on the Haverhill and Framingham/Worcester Lines are in fact because of workforce shortage due to Omicron, these service cuts may decrease ridership but are only temporary.

Trinnau wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 11:56 pm As for the ridership on the schedule, I checked it right after I saw that article and it was working, but I don't see it now. I wonder if the adjustments they made for the temporary service changes due to short staffing screwed something up on the back end.

The ridership figures are based on the prior month's data. Maybe they don't have enough data yet to present figures?

No, the article say it's constantly updated and based on the last 2-4 weeks of data. Like I said, it was there right after the new winter schedule came out but isn't now.

mbrproductions wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 9:10 am The service cuts on the Haverhill and Framingham/Worcester Lines are in fact because of workforce shortage due to Omicron, these service cuts may decrease ridership but are only temporary.

Right, that's basically what I said, but my point is they then changed the online schedule and that change may have screwed up the connection that pulled the ridership data and translated it into their visual 3-tier display, as described in the article.

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transp ... uter-rail/

Steve Poftak, the general manager of the MBTA, said on Thursday at a meeting of the T board of directors that commuter rail is no longer the laggard among the T’s various transportation offerings.

“That’s done,” he said. “The commuter rail is now pretty much marching in step with the Red, Orange, and Green Lines.”

Sounds like good news!