Note: Babel Fish is a
third-party resource and a computer translation of the original webpage. It
is provided for general information only and should not be regarded as complete
or accurate.
The Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission has developed a Regional Transit Report Card to assess the state of public transportation in the ten county region. You can download the report in PDF here:
As the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania moves toward a performance based funding system for public transit, SPC has taken the initiative to gather data on the performance of the transit agencies within the region and to make this information accessible and understandable to the public. The report card data will be reported annually by the transit providers and posted on this website.
For purposes of clarity, and to ensure that the data reported is comparable, all of the information contained in the report card is for fixed route bus transit service only. While there are multiple agencies that provide public transportation services in the Southwestern Pennsylvania region via various modes; bus, light rail (LRT), incline and shared ride (paratransit) service, the most readily available data is for fixed route bus. Therefore this report card is focuses on that type of service. The region’s fixed route bus transit providers are:
The first set of data provided in the regional transit report card reflects the primary operating statistics measured by all transit providers. This data provides the basis for the performance measures shown in the second set of charts. In this section, we provide a list and brief description of those operating statistics. It should also be noted that in many cases, data for the Port Authority of Allegheny County, the largest agency in the region and one of the top 20 largest transit agencies in the county, is shown separately.
RIDERSHIP Ridership data is simply the number of passengers making trips on the fixed route bus service. The report card shows ridership in the following categories:
Fiscal Year total ridership for the past 5 years
Annual senior citizen riders for the past 2 years
Commuter riders to/from downtown Pittsburgh for the past 5 years (PAAC excluded)
Ridership numbers reflect the number of customers for the transit provider and therefore impact the revenue received by the agency. In Pennsylvania, senior citizens are provided free transportation on public transit and the fares are subsidized through the State Lottery Funds.
Commuters to Pittsburgh from outlying counties are reported due to the impact these riders and service have on regional planning and transportation decision making.
REVENUE Revenue is the income generated by the “sale of rides”. Transit providers report revenue in two ways; farebox revenue and senior citizen reimbursements. Farebox revenue is the sum of the cash paid by riders directly on the bus along with all payments received by the transit agency for pre-paid fares such as weekly or monthly passes. Senior citizen reimbursement is the revenue paid to the transit provider from the State Lottery for all the free trips taken by riders age 65 and over.
This report card shows a 5 year trend in farebox revenue for each provider along with the past two years of data on senior citizen revenue reimbursements.
OPERATING EXPENSES Expenses reported in this document reflect those costs incurred in operating fixed route bus service. Examples of those costs include salaries and wages, fringe benefits, fuel, supplies etc.
Data for the past 5 years of operating expenses are shown in the report card.
VEHICLE HOURS Transit providers track vehicle hours in two ways; total hours and revenue hours. Total hours include all time that a bus is running and not parked in the garage. Revenue hours are only those hours the bus is “in service” or picking up and dropping off passengers. Total hours include “non-revenue” time such as driving to/from the garage, often referred to as dead head time.
The report card reflects vehicle hour data for the previous two years.
VEHICLE MILES Similar to vehicle hours, transit providers track both total vehicle miles along with revenue vehicle miles.
The past two years worth of data on vehicle miles is reported.
Using the data described in the previous section, we have developed a series of charts reflecting performance measures (ratios). The performance measures and the primary factors that impact them are shown on each chart. The following is a brief description of the performance measures:
PASSENGERS PER HOUR – Number of riders for each hour of service provided
PASSENGERS PER MILE – Number of riders for each mile of service provided
REVENUE PER RIDER – Average fare (cash) received from each passenger
COST RECOVERY RATIO – Percentage of costs covered by revenue collected
COST PER RIDER – Amount spent for each passenger
COST PER REVENUE HOUR – Amount each hour of service costs
COST PER REVENUE MILE – Amount each mile of service costs
REVENUE PER REVENUE HOUR – Amount of revenue earned per hour of service
The final two charts in the regional report card show all of the sources of operating funds by agency as well as a five year trend for the region. All transit agencies receive subsidies, in addition to the revenue collected from riders, to cover their operating expenses. The categories shown for these funds include Federal, State, County and Local governments, State Lottery Funds, farebox revenue and Other (advertising revenue, Job Access Reverse Commute funding).
In fiscal year 2009, the region’s fixed-route bus transit services provided nearly 63 million rides and leveraged almost $300 million in state and federal funding. Regional bus operations also generated almost $75 million through passenger fares. Nearly 900,000 commuter trips were taken by bus from outside Allegheny County into the region’s business core. Regional transit usage has shown continuous increases across the last four fiscal years and indications are that those increases will continue into the near future.
