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Sound Transit's 2009 daily riders
average on Seattle
New information as of February 1, 2010: Sound Transit has made technical adjustments in previous counts after discovery of errors in the counting process. The new estimated daily weekday, non-holiday average count of boardings is now reported as 15,546, but formerly was 14,910. PITF will soon be revising the earlier commentary and charts below to reflect this new information. Documentation of this change is here.
This page covers Seattle's new light rail passenger counts from opening day July 18 through December 31, 2009. On September 19, Metro bus routes were revised to drop off more customers at light rail stations, and ridership showed an uptick in the days following. October, 2009 average daily weekday boardings were 16,192, a new monthly high. That monthly average has not been exceeded in the final two months of 2009. Following highs in October, ridership trended downward until December 19, when the Airport extension opened, and an upward trend manifested as the year ended. The overall
average boardings per non-holiday weekday for all of 2009 since revenue
service began was On July 30, 2009, Sound Transit forecast 21,000 per day by year end. That number was reached once, on October 1, 2009 when a daily high of 21,374 was achieved. This count was exceeded on the two days in July when rides were free, but not again in 2009. The best day in 2009 after the Airport extension opened was 19,425 on December 28. The next hope for increased ridership will come after Saturday, February 6, 2010 when the Metro 194 express bus in the same corridor (Seattle tunnel to SeaTac Airport) is discontinued. All train rides were free on the opening weekend July 18-19, and the ridership estimate counted by hand was 92,397, with a machine count of 66,792. These two free days are not included on the charts below. PITF will update the charts below as new data are obtained from Sound Transit.
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Note: Sound Transit states that these daily readings are estimates and subject to revision as issues with the automated passenger counting equipment are uncovered and resolved.
By popular demand, here are the counts for the non-holiday weekday boardings. The red line below is a 15 day moving average.
Sound Transit uses photoelectric "beam" passenger sensors above the eight doors on ten of the 35 rail cars in service and then extrapolates to all the cars on all runs during a service day. This way of counting passenger rail boardings is standard in the U.S. transit industry. Following further revisions, numbers similar to the above will be Sound Transit's official report on passengers served provided to the public and U.S. Government.
Click here for the data sheet (pdf) provided by Sound Transit to PITF on August 20, 2009.
Click here for the data sheet (pdf) provided on September 8, 2009.
Click here for the data sheet (pdf) provided on October 5, 2009.
Click here for the data sheet (pdf) provided on November 9, 2009
Click here for the data sheet (pdf) provided on December 15, 2009
Click here for the data sheet (pdf) provided on January 12, 2010
Click here for revised weekday boarding data (pdf) provided on February 1, 2010
Photo of the automated passenger counting electronic eye on Link rail
cars number 101 to 110, about a
third of them. As of October, cars 111 to 135 do not have these counters
installed. Total boarding counts are extrapolated from numbers recorded
on the cars where the counters exist.