Findings reveal public transit riders are motivated first and foremost by convenience and are optimistic about their local agencies
New York - May 8th, 2018 - Masabi, the global leader in mobile ticketing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based fare collection, today published its Mass Transit Rider Research Report: Key Factors Influencing Ridership in North America. The report, based on a survey of over 1000 US residents with access to public transit services, sheds light on some of the behaviours impacting public transit ridership across the nation and explores the effect new technologies and new urban mobility services, such as ridesharing, are having on the mobility ecosystem.
The survey reveals that riders are combining shared private and public transit options and taking multimodal journeys in greater numbers than expected. It also shows that their primary driver for using public transit is convenience and as such technologies such as mobile ticketing and vehicle location tracking are having a positive effect on ridership numbers.
Key findings include:
Public transit remains underutilized
- 70% of Americans drive themselves on at least a weekly basis, while 40% never use public transit despite having access
- 19% of respondents are using public transportation every week, with 9% now using ridesharing every week
Citizens feel mostly optimistic about their public transit services
- 32% report that their local transit options are improving and 49% believe they are remaining the same
- Only 19% say the quality of their local transit is declining
Convenience is the top priority for passengers when choosing to ride public transit
- More than price (24%), travel time (8%), and even necessity (17%), convenience is the number one motivator, with 33% of respondents selecting it as their primary reason for riding
Ridesharing is connecting public transit for many facilitating multimodal journeys
- More than one third of our respondents (35%) are now combining ridesharing with public transit to reach a destination on at least an occasional basis, while 7% are combining ridesharing with public transit on at least a weekly basis
Convenience enablers attract riders
- Up to a quarter of potential riders report that convenience features such as combining modes of transit through an app, mobile ticketing and location tracking would cause, or already have caused them, to use public transit more often
Shared mobility use increases likelihood of public transit ridership
- 80% of weekly drivers never use public transit, while 95.5% of weekly rideshare riders use public transit, pointing to a future of reduced car ownership in favor of public/private urban mobility options.
"This report paints a picture of the future of public transit and how
it can both learn from and operate in partnership with new mobility options, to the benefit of all," said Brian Zanghi, CEO of Masabi. "By implementing the types of convenience features found in ridesharing and other transportation alternatives and integrating multiple transit modes to deliver full first-last mile mobility, the emerging mobility ecosystem is set to provide a viable alternative to car ownership. Getting there, however, will require public/private partnerships between the agencies and mobility services that Americans already depend on every day.”
In Q4 2017 Masabi polled 1010 Americans who have access to, but do not necessarily ride, public transit. The full report contains a breakdown of the complete survey findings as well as recommendations for public transit agencies and officials based on the results. Masabi’s report shows that the frequency with which riders are combining services is much higher than others have shown and points to the potential for more interconnected transit systems.
To see a full breakdown of Masabi’s survey results, download the Mass Transit Rider Research Report here.
About Masabi
Masabi is the global leader in mobile ticketing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based fare collection for transit. Masabi’s Justride is a cloud-based mobility platform unifying account-based and pre-pay ticketing into a single configurable solution. Justride’s SaaS architecture, ‘Mobile First‘ approach and BYOT philosophy, allow transport providers of all sizes around the globe to deliver innovation quickly, delighting passengers and reducing costs, while increasing efficiency and data insights.
The company’s Justride SDK, the world’s first and only mobile ticketing SDK for public transport, allows partners such as Uber, Kisio, Chalo and Transit App to request fare types, make payments, and deliver visual and barcode mobile tickets to a passenger within their applications.
Masabi works in partnership with more than thirty leading transit agencies and operators in North America, Europe, Australia and around the globe, including; New York MTA, Arriva, National Express, Keolis, Thames Clippers, Boston MBTA, LA Metrolink, The Hague and Las Vegas RTC. It has offices in London, New York, Boston and Cluj and investors include Mastercard and Keolis.
Enquiries please email: James.Gooch@masabi.com
