'Transit Insights' Updated With New Features for Visualizing Public Transit Data

The team at TransitCenter has announced updates to the Transit Insights visual tool, which tracks the vital signs of transit: ridership, service hours, fares, and more. The update promises new data and improved usability.

As an example of the new usefulness of the Transit Insights tool, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is offered:

Take LA Metro, the main transit agency in Los Angeles. Metro’s overall vehicle revenue miles (VRM) increased 19% from 2006 to 2018. Usually people respond to greater levels of service by riding transit more, but LA Metro’s overall transit ridership actually decreased 18% during this same period.

Using Transit Insights to isolate VRM by mode, the dynamics of these contradictory trends are revealed.

Breaking down the change in service volume by mode, bus service miles actually decreased 21%, while rail increased 80%. That helps explain why bus ridership, which accounts for most trips people take on LA Metro, declined 30% over this period.

That context informs an understanding of the news that Metro L.A. in June released an updated draft of its 2020 Long Range Transportation Plan, which would invest $400 billion over 30 years in the region's transportation system.

The article includes all of the rest of the new features to be found on Transit Insights, highlighting the Orange Line on the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system (which recently restored 90 percent of its pre-pandemic service levels) for an example of how to unlock demographic insights from the tool.