Recent Decline in Public Transportation Ridership: Analysis, Causes, and Responses

Rethinking mission and service delivery, rethinking fare policy, giving transit priority, careful partnering with shared-use mobility providers, and encouraging transit-oriented density are among the strategies transit agencies can employ to increase ridership and mitigate or stem declines in ridership that started years before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The TRB Transit Cooperative Research Program's TCRP Research Report 231: Recent Decline in Public Transportation Ridership: Analysis, Causes, and Responses provides a deep-dive exploration of the ridership losses already being experienced by transit systems prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and explores strategies that appear to be key as we move to the new normal of a post-pandemic world.

Supplemental to the report are TCRP Web-Only Document 74: Recent Decline in Public Transportation Ridership: Hypotheses, Methodologies, and Detailed City-by-City Results and an overview presentation.