Annual Tram/LRT Statistics
The following are the annual tram/LRT ridership statistics courtesy of the Eurotrams group.
In contradiction to what many local politicians; bureaucrats and academics would have us believe, modern LRT and or tram can carry large numbers of transit customers and do in annual revenue service.
Let us forget the many “man-of-straw arguments” against LRT by the usual suspects, modern LRT works well ans can cater to high density traffic on a daily basis.
1. St Petersburg: tram 476 mill pass p.a., 205 route km.
2. Budapest: tram 396 mill pass p.a., 156 route km.
3. Prague: tram and light rail 333 mill pass p.a., 142 route km.
4. Bucharest: tram and light rail 322 mill pass p.a., 145 route km.
5. Vienna: tram and light rail 294 mill pass p.a., 177 route km.
6. Warsaw: tram 270 mill pass p.a., 120 route km.
7. Moscow: tram 252 mill pass p.a., 163 route km.
8. Paris: tram 233 mill pass p.a., 104 route km.
Note: Paris tram figure includes Translohr rubber-tyred guided vehicle9. Zagreb: tram 214 mill pass p.a., 148 route km.
10. Cologne: light rail 210 mill pass p.a. 195 route km.
11. Hong Kong: tram and light rail 206 mill pass p.a. (estimated), 49 route km.
12. Zurich: tram 205 mill pass p.a., 126 route km.
13. Brno: tram 188 mill pass p.a., 139 route km.
14. Yekaterinburg: tram 180 mill pass p.a., 180 route km.
15. Melbourne: tram 177 mill pass p.a., 250 route km.
16. Berlin: tram 173 mill pass p.a., 192 route km.
17. Stuttgart: light rail 170 mill pass p.a., 192 route km.
18. Dresden: tram 145 mill pass p.a., 134 route km.
19. Istanbul: tram 140 mill pass p.a.
20. Gothenburg: tram 140 mill pass p.a., 144 route km.
21. Leipzig: tram 134 mill pass p.a., 148 route km.
22. Amsterdam: tram 130 mill pass p.a., 138 route km.
23. Brussels: tram 123 mill pass p.a., 139 route km.
24. Toronto: tram 105 mill pass p.a., 150 route km.
25. Munich: tram 105 mill pass p.a., 79 route km.
Cambie Street merchants just lost their battle in court with TransLink over the Cambie Street debacle causing misery and chaos to the lives of hundreds of merchants after TransLink switched from bored construction to open cut construction for the subway under Cambie Street. According to the “judge” whose judgement is suspect and who I’d like to put on trial: TransLink received “statutory authority” to disrupt and ruin the lives of the merchants.
“… defendants, which include TransLink, Canada Line Rapid Transit Inc. and others, couldn’t be held liable for business losses as they received statutory authority for the disruption.”
http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/2015/11/09/court-quashes-canada-line-claims
I can’t say that I agree with the decision of “judgy pooh” who was likely hand selected to guarantee the decision against the cheated merchants. In truth: TransLink was given statutory authority to construct the subway. TransLink wasn’t given statutory authority to trample the rights of the merchants. Judgy pooh is messed up in the head as far as I’m concerned.
I do believe that there will be an appeal and not the kind of appeal which TransLink is expecting or can defend. Al Capone went to jail for tax evasion rather than for murder. “Planners” at TransLink will end up going to jail not only for criminal negligence but also for criminal fraud rather than for cheating the merchants on Cambie Street and destroying their lives.
Getting back to the topic of this story on the passengers carried by the trams, it shows how the passenger moving capacity of s-train operated by TransLink is not more than the passenger moving capacity of trams. In Vancouver, s-train by TransLink is a sham.
“Movement of tram and s-train passengers compared”
Munich operating trams in Germany moves 105 million passengers per annum with 79 km of track (1.33 million passengers per km of track). In comparison, Metro Vancouver operating s-train logged about 49.8 million passenger trips in 2014. Passengers make two trips daily on average but we’ll give TransLink the benefit of the doubt and not cut the s-train passengers trips in one-half as it is not clear what passengers means in the tram data. Regional Metro Vancouver publishes passenger trips and system boardings for s-train:
“Transit Ridership 1989‐2014, 2014 SKYTRAIN, 49,821,850 [passenger trips per annum]”.
http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/regional-planning/PlanningPublications/TransitRidership.pdf
TransLink operates 68.7 km of s-train track. This excludes the Cambie Street subway tracks.
“SkyTrain is the rapid transit metropolitan rail system of Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. SkyTrain has 68.7 km”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)
Doing the math, s-train moves 0.72 million passengers per km of track (49.8 million passenger trips in 2014 / 68.7 km of s-train track). In other words, “s-train” in Vancouver on an “apple to apple” comparison basis is only carrying about one-half as many passengers (at best) compared to the tram in Munich. Planners at TransLink claim that tram lines can’t carry as many people as s-train lines. Obviously, the planners at TransLink are mistaken.
Many more trams systems in the story here carry even more passengers than the trams in Munich. TransLink is not being honest about the passenger moving capacity of trams which can move more passengers than the s-train. Trams move passengers at much less cost and with much better service than s-train, as well. Trams are faster than s-train for most commuters.
Essentially, electrically powered trams are very long electrically powered trolleybuses running on steel rails embedded in the roads. Statistically, it is always faster to step out of your door to board the tram at the tram stop in front of your home than to bus it to the very distant s-train station (or b-line stop) to ride hub to hub transit (s-train or b-line crap).
Conclusion: s-train is overpriced junk. TransLink is run by lying scum. Tram capacity exceeds s-train capacity.
“Ridership”
While comparing the passengers carried by tram and s-train, I noticed another incongruity in the “ridership” numbers which TransLink passes off to APTA.
TransLink is very loose in how it defines ridership. It appears as if TransLink published the following in Wikipedia: “Passengers on SkyTrain made an average of 390,600 trips on weekdays during the third quarter of 2014. In 2014, the network carried a total of 117.7 million passengers in 2014 [TransLink lumps in the Cambie Street subway with s-train for its 117.7 million passengers in 2014].”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)#cite_note-5
Notice how TransLink referred to 390,600 as “trips” on weekdays. In addition, take note how TransLink is claiming 117.7 million “passengers” in 2014.
These claims are false, and TransLink is really stating the number of times that passengers boarded the s-train and Cambie Street subway on weekends as trips (passenger). Back calculating the “average” supposed trips for both weekdays and weekends shows this. TransLink is a member of APTA which defines ridership on Saturdays as 50% on weekdays and ridership on Sundays or holidays as 25% on weekdays: 390,600 system boardings on weekdays / 365 days * (249 weekdays + 50% * 52 Saturdays + 25%* 52 Sundays + 25%* 12 holidays) = 311,000 system boardings daily on average.
Let’s compare this to the official “system boardings” by TransLink. Passengers boarded s-trains “and” the Cambie Street subway (lumped in with the s-train data by TransLink) 117.7 million times over the year. This is about 320,000 times daily on average for “weekdays and weekends” (77.5 million times over the year for s-train plus 40.2 million times over the year for s-train = 117.7 million times over the year or 320,000 times daily on average for “weekdays and weekends”).
http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/regional-planning/PlanningPublications/TransitRidership.pdf
Daily system boardings calculated from the annual system boardings are average because they include both the weekday and weekend number of times that passengers boarded s-train as well as the subway (320,000 system boardings daily on average). These system boardings from the official TransLink data closely match the 311,000 system boardings daily on average, back calculated from the 390,600 weekday “trips” stated by TransLink in Wikipedia. That is, TransLink uses system boardings as ridership and pretends that system boardings are trips or passengers. Surprise. TransLink is being disingenuous, as usual. Scum.
Ridership listed by TransLink, it seems, can either refer to “passenger trips” or “system boardings” (the number of times that passengers board transit). What’s the reason for this ambiguity by the monkeys at TransLink? Don’t they know the difference between “passenger trips” and “system boardings”?
http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/regional-planning/PlanningPublications/TransitRidership.pdf
What kind of monkey show is TransLink running? How can ridership have two meanings?
To show how s-train is so awesome: TransLink, of course, submits system boardings (which are greater than passenger trips) as ridership to APTA. This is not honest reporting of ridership by TransLink.
System boardings indirectly measure transit inefficiency. High system boardings relative to passenger trips (TransLink s-train) mean a large numbers of transfers and imply inefficiency as well as forced transfers.
TransLink by stating “system boardings” as ridership is being dishonest. From what I’ve seen on the 99 B-Line route, in particular, TransLink purposely inflates its ridership by forcing its passengers to make many forced transfers to increase its system boardings which it submits to APTA as ridership.
Does APTA regard system boardings as ridership, too? Does Ottawa on page 33 of the following statistics by APTA refer to system boardings as ridership, also? Is Ottawa submitting passenger trips to reflect actual ridership or system boardings like TransLink? Incidentally, ridership (passenger trips?) in Edmonton running LRT went up 2.33% compared to “system boardings” in Vancouver running s-train which went up a measly 0.5%.
http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/Ridership/2014-q4-ridership-APTA.pdf
I’d be curious in finding out whether TransLink is falsely comparing its “system boardings” to “passenger trips” in Ottawa and other cities. Even if system boardings are easier to compile than the actual number of passenger trips, not all transit organizations in Canada and the USA do what TransLink does (force transit users to make “extra” transfers to s-trains and b-lines).
TransLink by reporting system boardings as ridership rather than passenger trips is inflating its true ridership by about 50%. This is a big deal. It is tantamount to fraud. TransLink does this to over represent its ridership in relation to the ridership of other transit organizations in Canada. Ridership on s-train does not measure up so TransLink cheats and lies to inflate it.
Conclusion: TransLink is run by lying and dishonest scum. Monkeys at TransLink are complete dirtbags who obfuscate virtually everything which they report on s-train ridership and capacity.