WMATA Upgrades Ridership Data Portal

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) ridership data portal now includes a combined look at rail and bus ridership, adds no-tap rail ridership to the rail dashboard to track the effectiveness of anti-fare evasion efforts, and provides a more complete picture of total ridership. It also includes Metrobus ridership data based on passenger counting devices on board the vehicles to better account for total ridership.

All data is downloadable for independent analysis.

WMATA’s Ridership Data Portal

The ridership data portal was launched in 2019 to give customers, journalists, jurisdictional staff, researchers, the business community, and other stakeholders access to data about WMATA’s ridership patterns. Providing open data also promotes transparency and accountability.

Some of the trends riders can look at in the portal include the changing commute patterns, growing weekend ridership, ridership on popular holidays like the Fourth of July, and the busiest day in recent WMATA history.

Riders can also look at where their home station ranks in ridership among other stations. The agency is also developing a ridership dashboard for MetroAccess in the coming months.

WMATA’s Focus on Ridership

The agency’s data portal update comes on the heels of an announcement in January that customers can now visit a new website to get a personalized report of their ridership for an entire year.

The new website, called “Your 2023 Metro” report, gives riders detailed information about their use of public transit last year including:

• Number of bus and rail trips.
• Number of stations visited.
• Miles they traveled on transit.
• Most used bus route.
• How much carbon dioxide emissions they saved by taking transit instead of driving or ride-hailing.
• How they rank against other WMATA riders.

“We know how much value transit brings to the region and the lives of our customers and this new tool will give riders a tangible idea of how much they used Metro in 2023,” said WMATA’s GM/CEO Randy Clarke. “Every time you choose to take transit over driving, you're helping the DMV region to make strides toward our climate and safety goals and you’re saving time by not sitting in traffic.”

Clarke added that he hoped the stats bring some friendly competition to social media, too, and that he ranks in the top 1% of WMATA riders in 2023.