New Report Shows Year-to-Year Boardings Up 11 percent
METRO's chosen path to increase ridership by delivering improved
routes, with improved connections, is producing solid, steady and most
impressively significant, numbers - across the board. Ridership on all fixed
routes grew to nearly 7 million in November 2015. That is an 11 percent
jump from November 2014.
Local bus ridership numbers for November 2015 are up
more than 4 percent from a year ago. METRORail's Red Line
ridership is up nearly 26 percent and Park & Ride boardings have increased
nearly 6 and a half percent.
"We
are in the first year of a five year plan to improve mobility options for the
Houston region," said METRO Board Chairman Gilbert Garcia. "The
upswing in ridership on the New
Bus Network launched on Aug. 16, 2015 is immensely gratifying.
The countless hours of researching routes, community meetings and input,
planning changes, and redirecting and training our staff is paying off and we're confident that trend will continue to grow."
“This
is a good start and we expect our new transfer policy will increase ridership
even more,” said METRO CEO Tom Lambert. “ The ability to transfer in any
direction will not only make our network easier to use, it will give our riders
more freedom and can save them a significant amount of money.”
METRO
will unveil its new two-way transfer policy on Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016. The new Board policy changes a one way fare into a three hour ticket,
allowing fare cardholders free transfers in any direction on local bus or light
rail within that three hour window. Currently, transfers are free in
one direction.
 
 Total boardings for local METRO buses on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, combined, was about 30,000 - an 18 percent hike from 2014.
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