[ Transit Operators Map ] [ Regional Transit Report Card ]

New Castle Area Transportation Authority
Phone: 724-654-3130
http://www.newcastletransit.org

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Butler Transit Authority
Phone: 724-283-0445
http://www.thebusbutlerpa.com

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Town & Country Transit
Phone: 724-548-8696 or 1-800-245-8588 (toll-free)

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Indiana County Transit Authority (IndiGO)
Phone: 724-465-2140 or 1-800-442-6928 (toll-free)
http://www.indigobus.com

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Beaver County Transit Authority (BCTA)
Phone: 724-728-8600
http://www.bcta.com

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Port Authority of Allegheny County
Phone: 412-442-2000
http://www.portauthority.org

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Westmoreland County Transit Authority
Phone: 724-834-9282 or 1-800-221-9282 (toll free)
http:// www.westmorelandtransit.com

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GG&C Bus Company, Inc.
City of Washington
Phone: 724-222-2320 or 1-888-811-9704 (toll-free)
http://www.ggcbusride.com/

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Fayette Area Coordinated Transportation (FACT)
Phone: 724-430-4600 or
1-800-321-RIDE (toll free)
http://www.factbus.com

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Mid Mon Valley Transit Authority
Phone: 724-489-0880
http://www.mmvta.com

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SPC Transit Operator's Committee

Public Transit Park-n-Ride Facilities

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 SPC Regional Transit Report Card

[ Download The Report (Excel Format, 532 KB) ] [ About The Report ]

About The Report

Introduction

The Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission has developed a Regional Transit Report Card to assess the state of public transportation in the ten county region. You can download the report in Excel format here:

• Regional Transit Report Card (Excel, 532 KB)

As the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania moves toward a performance based funding system for public transit, SPC has taken the initiative to gather data on the performance of the transit agencies within the region and to make this information accessible and understandable to the public. The report card data will be reported annually by the transit providers and posted on this website.

In light of continuous funding shortfalls and the lack of a dedicated funding source for public transportation, legislation was enacted in July 2007 referred to as Act 44 Public Transportation Program. The principles of the Act are to provide a dedicated and predictable source of funding, develop a funding structure and distribution that is simple and easily understood, link funding to need and performance, strengthen transit accountability and PennDOT oversight and promote operating and financial efficiency. Additional information on Act 44 can be found on PennDOT’s website at www.dot.state.pa.us.  Once Act 44 is formally implemented, SPC will incorporate all of the specific performance measures from the legislation into the regional report card.

For purposes of clarity, and to ensure that the data reported is comparable, all of the information contained in the report card is for fixed route bus transit service only. While there are10 agencies that provide public transportation service via various modes; bus, light rail (LRT), incline and shared ride (paratransit) service, the vast majority of service is fixed route bus and therefore this report card is focused on that service only. The region’s fixed route bus transit providers are:

1. Beaver County Transit Authority
2. Butler Transit Authority
3. GG&C Bus Company
4. Fayette Area Coordinated Transportation
5. Indiana County Transit Authority
6. Mid-Mon Valley Transit Authority
7. New Castle Area Transit Authority
8. Port Authority of Allegheny County
9. Town & Country Transit
10. Westmoreland County Transit Authority

A map, depicting fixed route bus service provided by these transit operators in the 10-county region, is below:

Note: if you find the map hard to read in a browser, please download this version, in PDF (1.1 MB).

The following table provides some details for each of the 10 providers:

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DESCRIPTION OF DATA

The first set of data provided in the regional transit report card reflects the primary operating statistics measured by all transit providers. This data provides the basis for the performance measures shown in the second set of charts. In this section, we provide a list and brief description of those operating statistics.  It should also be noted that in many cases, data for the Port Authority of Allegheny County, the largest agency in the region and one of the top 20 largest transit agencies in the county, is shown separately

RIDERSHIP
Ridership data is simply the number of passengers making trips on the fixed route bus service. The report card shows ridership in the following categories:
            Fiscal Year total ridership for the past 5 years
            Annual senior citizen riders for the past 2 years
Commuter riders to/from downtown Pittsburgh for the past 5 years (PAAC excluded)
Ridership numbers reflect the number of customers for the transit provider and therefore impact the revenue received by the agency. In Pennsylvania, senior citizens are provided free transportation on public transit and the fares are subsidized through the State Lottery Funds.
Commuters to Pittsburgh from outlying counties are reported due to the impact these riders and service have on regional planning and transportation decision making.

REVENUE
Revenue is the income generated by the “sale of rides”. Transit providers report revenue in two ways; farebox revenue and senior citizen reimbursements. Farebox revenue is the sum of the cash paid by riders directly on the bus along with all payments received by the transit agency for pre-paid fares such as weekly or monthly passes.  Senior citizen reimbursement is the revenue paid to the transit provider from the State Lottery for all the free trips taken by riders age 65 and over.
This report card shows a 5 year trend in farebox revenue for each provider along with the past two years of data on senior citizen revenue reimbursements.

OPERATING EXPENSES
Expenses reported in this document reflect those costs incurred in operating fixed route bus service. Examples of those costs include salaries and wages, fringe benefits, fuel, supplies etc.
Data for the past 5 years of operating expenses are shown in the report card.

VEHICLE HOURS
Transit providers track vehicle hours in two ways; total hours and revenue hours. Total hours include all time that a bus is running and not parked in the garage. Revenue hours are only those hours the bus is “in service” or picking up and dropping off passengers. Total hours include “non-revenue” time such as driving to/from the garage, often referred to as dead head time.
The report card reflects vehicle hour data for the previous two years.

VEHICLE MILES
Similar to vehicle hours, transit providers track both total vehicle miles along with revenue vehicle miles.
The past two years worth of data on vehicle miles is reported.

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PERFORMANCE MEASURES

Using the data described in the previous section, we have developed a series of charts reflecting performance measures (ratios). The performance measures and the primary factors that impact them are shown on each chart. The following is a brief description of the performance measures:

PASSENGERS PER HOUR – Number of riders for each hour of service provided

PASSENGERS PER MILE – Number of riders for each mile of service provided

REVENUE PER RIDER – Average fare (cash) received from each passenger

COST RECOVERY RATIO – Percentage of costs covered by revenue collected

COST PER RIDER – Amount spent for each passenger

COST PER REVENUE HOUR – Amount each hour of service costs

COST PER REVENUE MILE – Amount each mile of service costs

REVENUE PER REVENUE HOUR – Amount of revenue earned per hour of service

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SOURCES OF OPERATING FUNDS

The final two charts in the regional report card show all of the sources of operating funds by agency as well as a five year trend for the region. All transit agencies receive subsidies, in addition to the revenue collected from riders, to cover their operating expenses. The categories shown for these funds include Federal, State, County and Local governments, State Lottery Funds, farebox revenue and Other (advertising revenue, Job Access Reverse Commute funding).

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SUMMARY

In fiscal year 2007, the region’s fixed-route bus transit services provided nearly 65 million rides and leveraged over $250 million in state and federal funding.  Regional bus operations also generated over $100 million through passenger fares. Nearly 750,000 commuter trips were taken by bus from outside Allegheny County into the region’s business core.  Transit ridership has shown continuous increases across the last four fiscal years and indications are that those increases will continue into the near future.

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