The TTC recently published statistics for its surface routes for 2014, adding to the online collection including 2011 and 2012.

For convenience in comparing figures from the three sets, I have consolidated them into a pair of tables.

Stats20112014

This table is ordered by route number and contains the following fields:

• Route number
• Route name
• Weekday ridership
• AM Peak vehicles
• PM Peak vehicles
• Vehicle Hours per day
• Vehicle Kilometres per day

Notes:

• In 2011 and 2012, some route statistics were consolidated whereas in 2014 they are shown separately.
• Data were published for weekends, night and downtown express routes only in 2014.
• Riding counts are not updated every year on every route. Where the same value appears in two years, most likely there has been no new count.

Stats20112014Summary

This table consolidates the information by type of route.

• The “14x” routes are the downtown express buses for which data were only published in 2014.
• The “19x” routes are the “rocket” express buses.
• “Riders” are unlinked trips or “boardings”. One continuous trip can produce multiple boardings depending on the number of transfers.

The total number of riders by type of service can be subject to error if a considerable proportion of the routes do not have new riding counts (e.g. streetcars in 2012). Note that some of the 2011 counts are also from previous years.

The ratio of riders to service provided is expressed relative to AM Peak vehicles, to Vehicle Hours operated, and to Vehicle Kilometres operated.

The vehicle speeds are based on the reported hours and kilometres operated. To the extent that the hours include layovers (which on some routes can be a considerable proportion of the scheduled time), the speeds could be understated although this would be more likely to show up on a route-by-route calculation. This particularly affects night routes where running times are extended to be a multiple of the 30 minute headways.

Note that despite the importance placed on “express” buses (the 14x and 19x series), the vast majority (95%) of bus trips is carried on local services. Productivity of the downtown express routes is particularly poor.

Streetcar routes operate in more congested areas with higher passenger loads and more frequent stops. Their boarding ratios per peak vehicle and per vehicle hour are about 50% higher than for the bus routes reflecting the higher capacity of streetcars.