Doing the math on OC Transpo

According to the OC Transpo website, there are 89.6 million passenger trips on OC Transpo every year1. Meanwhile, OC Transpo has an annual budget of $266 million.

So let’s whip out the ol’ calculator:

   $266,000,000 / 89,600,000 trips = $2.97/trip

Using those numbers, gleaned from the OC Transpo website, we see that each trip costs about $3. Which is much less than the $6.50 mentioned elsewhere.

Curious about the breakdown of ridership?

  • 37.6% of revenue comes from regular, ecopass, and express passes
  • 22.1% of revenue comes from students
  • 2.2% of revenue comes from seniors
  • 36.7% of revenue comes from cash and tickets (ie, we can’t make a guess about the demographic of the rider)

Those demographics are clearly understated. A third of OC Transpo’s revenue comes from cash and tickets, which may be used by students or seniors, or “other”.

Hmm. I’d like to get ahold of historical numbers for fare costs. It’d be fun to graph against tax rates.

Footnotes
  1. The OC Transpo website says 89.6 million passengers. If we multiply the number of weekday riders by 260 weekdays per year, we get 90 million, which seems to corroborate the number of trips. (back)

16 Responses to “Doing the math on OC Transpo”

  1. Posted by MG
    2007.Feb.09 @ 17:26

    I’m curious what counts as a “trip”. From any suburban location it takes a minumum of 2 busses to get anywhere. If you don’t happen to work/go to school on a major bus route it could be 3 or 4 buses.

    Also your calculation doesn’t take into account people with bus passes don’t pay $3 per trip.

    Assuming 56 fare paying trips a month (5 work days X 4 weeks X 2 trips per day), paying cash would cost $168, with tickets it would cost $106.40 and a bus pass cost $71.25, less for students and seniors.

    There isn’t really enough data to get a good cost per rider estimate. I imagine it wouldn’t be an easy thing. You’d have to stick someone at the door marking down how people pay, or a computer that checks passes, fares and transfers.

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  • Posted by e
    2007.Feb.10 @ 10:35

    Hey MG,

    I suspect that the trip estimate is gleaned from different sources than the revenue. In merry ol’ Halifax the buses had a pressure sensor at the front door that was used to count how many people got on and off the bus. I’m guessing they have a similar mechanism here.

    The point of the initial calculation is to show that bus trips aren’t as expensive as the $6.50 quoted elsewhere (I think you mentioned it, but I’ve seen it in the MSM as well). If OC Transpo’s numbers are correct, then the cost per trip is pretty low.

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  • Posted by MG
    2007.Feb.11 @ 17:32

    Ah, I see what you were getting at then. I basicly pulled the 6.50 number from the cost of a the suggested fair increase and multiplied by 2. Which doesn’t really give a good idea of cost per ride, but it’s the cost they would have to charge to break even as the revenues were only 115 million of the 266 mill budget.

    The problem still remains that although cost per ride is lower then the 6.50, total revenues are still pretty low. And a cost per ride isn’t really an effective measure. Buses that go from station to station and are always full, probably have a cost per ride in the pennies, where as a feeder route can drive around for an hour in the middle of the morning and pick up 2 riders probably costs $25 dollars per rider.

    It would be interesting to see data on how people travel on the bus. And I don’t mean a small sample, but every rider tracked from end to end we travel frequency and the likes. I’m sure there would be complaints about peoples movements being tracked so intensely though.

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  • Posted by e
    2007.Feb.11 @ 23:34

    Yo MG:

    Regarding the relative price of trips: you’re right. But the low volume route still needs to run so that people can rely on public transit, get to work, etc.

    I suspect that the data you’re talking about would show us that urban areas have high bus utilization, whereas other areas have much lower rates of use. But I could be wrong. =)

    e

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  • Posted by lazy_artist
    2007.Mar.01 @ 16:09

    Hey there,

    I beleive that they derive their data from “linked” trips and not unlinked trips. A linked trip would be marked as one for a person going to downtown and requiring 2 or 3 buses. Unlinked would be each time a person gets on it is counted.

    Last I checked, about 3 years ago, they had Automatic Passenger Counters by the doors. It was a small light sensor thing…

    Fill your boots with this data…
    http://www.ncr-trans-rcn.ca/index.php

    LA

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  • Posted by e
    2007.Mar.01 @ 23:28

    Hey Lazy,

    Thanks for the tip. That is a hefty pile of data. I’m surprised that they didn’t gather more on demographics, however. I’m curious about who is riding the bus: what does the average bus rider earn? What level of education have they attained? How many children do they have?

    e

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  • Posted by Prospector
    2008.Nov.02 @ 10:27

    The OC transpo site has budget numbers with the ditribution of fare types and % or revenue.
    The most recent budgetary numbers were for 2007, and based on the gross cost of $280 million, $123 million is fare based, and $156 million is subsidies. Using the % fares, applied to the Fare gross per fare type, and applying the individual fare, there are in fact only 150,000 fare paying rides per day, not the 355,100 ridership stated.. that would imply each fare paying passenger transfers at least once. In fact, the breakdown of passengers is 25% students, 19% Regular Pass, 4.6% Seniors pass, 11% Ecopass, and 20% tickets. With only 19% of the workforce using public transit, one mite speculate that each passenger costs $1,869.00 per year to service. If we assume the average rider uses the service twice per working day and there are 5x52x2=520 trips, each costs $3.59.. A student pass was $59.75 when I took this snapshot, therefore, the student is getting $78 of service for $59.75 if they only use the pass to and from school.. which probably is not the case.. The bottom line is OC transpo overstates the rider numbers, and should only talk fare paying passengers, they receeive 56% of their operating budget from subsidies, and passengers only pay 44% of the costs. The subsidies come from the taxpayer, of which only 19% of the labour force use public transit..($7.2 million of the subsidy comes from gas tax) If OC transpo had to run as most businesses, without subsidies.. the fares would have to increase by 227% to cover their costs.. think about that as you move towards the workforce, and remember to say thanks to everybody else you meet who subsidizes your travel.

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  • Posted by Prospector
    2008.Nov.02 @ 10:29

    I would be really interested in who moderates the site.. the numbers are derived from the OC transpo budget, you just have to dig a little deeper to get the truth.

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  • Pingback from Pie Palace » Blog Archive » Subsidies
  • Posted by Erigami Scholey-Fuller
    2008.Nov.02 @ 22:42

    Prospector: Would you care to share a link to that data?

    I don’t understand where you got some of your numbers, namely:

    1. 150,000 riders per day (even if only 36.7% of riders pay to get on the bus, the others have already paid for their passes and transfers) rather than the 355,000 quoted by OC Transpo;
    2. bus riders being 19% of employed Ottawa residents;
    3. and the $1,869.00/rider/year subsidy.

    As to thanking anyone for subsidizing me: I don’t think gratitude is really appropriate. Please take a look at my post titled Subsidies for my reasoning.

    Respond to this comment
  • Posted by carpite
    2008.Dec.09 @ 08:53

    In reviewing the Ottawa Citizen today I find the following:

    Weekly ridership = 369,900
    Avg Trip in km = 9
    then # personkms/week = 3,329,100

    If annual budget = 266,000,000
    then weekly budget = 5,115,385

    so $/personkm = 5,115,385 / 3,329,100 = $1.54

    Roughly 3 times the operating cost of 1 car per rider. Somebody please check my math. Did I miss a decimal place or is this for real?

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  • Posted by Erigami Scholey-Fuller
    2008.Dec.09 @ 19:20

    Yo carpite:

    You have an error on the first line. The average weekday ridership is 369,900. If you want $/personkms: $257,500,000 / 897,200,000 = $.287/km

    EDIT: If that error is in Citizen article, I’d love a link to it. Could you include that in a comment?

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  • Posted by carpite
    2008.Dec.12 @ 11:23

    My mistake. Here is the Citizen link:

    http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Business/Transpo+numbers/1051899/story.html

    It is weekday ridership they publish not weekly. The number of .287 is probably close. It would be as high as .31 /km if you take out the weekends and assume 5*52 weekdays. Basically the same cost as a Honda Fit dedicated to every rider.

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  • Posted by Prospector
    2008.Dec.12 @ 19:48

    As requested, here is the latest information I can find on OC Transpo’s Ridership and % of fare by fare type.
    It also includes ridership by fare type, so you can project the actual number of fare paying passengers by rationalizing the total revenues paid by riders, against the % paid by fare type and factoring in the fare period.
    http://www.octranspo.com/admin/Facts_Figures/Facts_ridership.htm
    Have fun and see what you come up with

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  • Posted by Mark
    2009.Jul.05 @ 13:25

    Hi,

    I would like to know if anyone has a history of OC Transpo fairs,over the last say 25 or so years,on a year-by-year / year over year bassis ?

    It seems nigh impossible to find any data.

    I can only go by memory,and at that it really angers me,when I think of what the fair was in 1989 versus now,in 2009.

    The tax increases,and driver cost of living/business expense/inflation,fuel price increases,etc,etc,JUST DONT add up ! I was on the 12 the other day and it was empty at 10 am,emptier @ 3 pm a week later,and months ago,nearly as empty at 11 am ,ALL,on a Friday ! None of those days were holidays…. It seems to me ridership has literally dropped right off a cliff this year.Far far worse then just after previous strikes.I have been living in the City since 88.Riding the BUS in this City is almost,no….IS too $$$.

    I also really REALLY dislike how the media portrays the fare increases.12 cents for tickets !?!?!? NO !!

    ITS A 15 -PERCENT- INCREASE FOR TICKET PRICES ! In one shot….

    TIA,

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  • Posted by Erigami Scholey-Fuller
    2009.Jul.10 @ 14:35

    Hi Mark,

    Call OC Transpo and ask for their annual report. It contains their prices back to the late 70s.

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