By Ahmed Abdul Aziz, Planning Analyst
Every year, TransLink publishes the Transit Service Performance Review (TSPR) and HandyDART Service Performance Review (HDSPR). The TSPR provides detailed insights into ridership trends across the entire TransLink transit system (SkyTrain, bus, West Cost Express, and HandyDART), while the HDSPR focuses on the performance of the HandyDART system, which is TransLink’s door-to-door, shared-ride service for people who need assistance to navigate the conventional public transit system. Both documents provide statistics on the recent year of transit service – valuable information for decision-making and providing public transparency on the TransLink system.
Source: TransLink
Access Planning played a lead role in drafting and producing the 2020 HDSPR, as well as the 2021 editions of both the TSPR and HDSPR. Our team completed extensive data analysis including preliminary and final calculations, advising on the most pertinent metrics to include, and visualizing relevant data in meaningful ways. We helped to sift through detailed ridership data to build the report’s narrative around the region’s annual ridership trends.
The TSPR provides information on metrics such as busiest routes and stations; boardings by time of the day; average daily boardings per mode and more. The HDSPR includes data on demand and registration, service reliability and customer satisfaction. Given the significant impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on transit ridership in 2020 and 2021, both documents also provide some information on “ridership recovery” – a comparison of transit ridership with the “pre-COVID” state in 2019. The 2021 TSPR notes that ridership recovery in 2021 was sporadic as the region continued to respond to the third wave of the pandemic in the first half of the year. Recovery did rise steadily as vaccination rates increased and restrictions eased in Metro Vancouver. The 2021 review of the HDSPR similarly shows that the demand for HandyDART trips grew as public health restrictions relaxed throughout 2021, and that in total, nearly 700,000 HandyDART trips were delivered throughout the year.
Some key findings of the 2021 TSPR include:
Roughly 2.2 million unique customers used the TransLink transit system in 2021, which is equivalent to 84% of the Metro Vancouver 2.6 million resident population. This is almost 70% of pre-Covid levels.
TransLink’s system-wide ridership recovery in fall 2021 was 59%. This is higher than the average recovery rate across Canadian and American transit agencies.
Highest recovery (62%) was seen in buses (representing 63% of total system-wide boardings), while the Expo and Millennium SkyTrain lines experienced a 57% recovery rate.
Some key findings of the 2021 edition of HDSPR include:
In total, 695,642 HandyDART trips were delivered in 2021, up 12% from 2020. 43,000 HandyDART trips were completed in January, while December recorded 68,000 trips.
Most trips made by HandyDART customers in 2021 were for three purposes: dialysis (24% of trips), medical appointments (22% of trips), and day programs (25% of trips).
Customers aged 20-34 had the highest average trip rates on average in 2021, while older customers comprised the largest proportion of HandyDART customers overall.
For further information read the full reports: TSPR and HDSPR