University of California Institute of Transportation Studies

This report presents and reviews the available sources of data on public transit riders and ridership. We intend it to be a resource for those who manage or simply wish to understand U.S. transit. In conducting this review, we consider the advantages and disadvantages of publicly available data on transit from a variety of public and private sources. We consider as well the relatively scarcer and less available sources of data on other providers of shared mobility, like ride-hail services, that compete with and complement public transit, as well as pieces we see as missing from the transit analytics pie. We conclude by discussing how data gaps both align with existing inequities and enable them to continue, unmeasured, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has made closing these gaps all the more important.