Transit Information Center

From 2002 to 2007 National ridership increased by 6.1%, or 547 million trips.

Until 2004, trips in conventional diesel / gas vehicles accounted for most trips, but in 2005 this trend was reversed.

Trips in clean vehicles increased by 29% while trips in conventional diesel / gas modes decreased by 14%.

Ridership in conventional diesel / gas bus decreased by 16% from 2002 to 2007, or 716 million trips.

Rapid rail trips increased by 14% and clean bus trips increased by 105%, or 433 million and 725 million trips respectively.

General notes concerning the methodology used to derive service mileage of alternative fuel vehicles:

1. The breakdown of service miles by fuel type (clean or conventional diesel/gas) is made through the reported mileage during period for each fleet group in the revenue vehicle inventory form used by the NTD. This mileage is used to derive a proration factor by fuel type which is used to prorate the service mileage (vehicle or passenger car miles).
2. Unlinked trips by fuel type are estimated assuming that the service effectiveness (trips per mile) of conventional diesel/gas and clean service is the same. This may not always be accurate at the agency level, but is reasonable at national aggregate level.
3. Because the data available does not allow the determination of proration factors because passenger cars (which do not require fuel) cannot be tied to diesel/electric locomotives when both types are used in the provision of service commuter rail was not included in this analysis.