who rides the bus?

AATA recently released a report on ridership (PDF) done by the UofM Urban Planning department last spring. The results indicate that the M-ride program has had a big impact and that we can probably expect that to continue.

55% of riders are between 18 and 29 years old. 42% of riders make less than $15k per year. So yeah, there are a lot of students riding the bus now. In fact, just under half of the surveyed riders were students.

Because students make up such a large portion of the ridership, about 60% of trips are for work or school. However 5% of trips were "social/cultural" and another 3% were "dining/food" trips. So the "bus date" has yet to realize its full potential, but the early adapters are starting to show.

More than 60% of riders use the bus five or more days each week. That same percentage of riders have increased the frequency of their bus rides. More than half of the riders started using the bus in the last 19 months (since the M-ride program started).

People seem to be generally satisfied with AATA's service. All aspects got an above average rating. Service frequency and availability of bus shelters received the lowest scores.