Teban54
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I'm creating a dedicated thread for everyone to share and discuss any data, analyses and visualizations related to transit in metro Boston (or elsewhere!). Currently, they are usually posted in the General MBTA thread, and hence tend to get lost with other discussions.
To be clear, if some analysis pertains strongly to a specific topic (e.g. Commuter Rail ridership growth, or a specific Crazy Transit Pitch you made), feel free to post it there instead. This post is mostly as a "general" data thread for things that don't fit elsewhere.
Examples of topics discussed here: (You don't have to limit to these; also, feel free to suggest more to this list)
Useful Official Resources: (Feel free to add more)
Useful Third-Party Resources: (Feel free to add more)
To be clear, if some analysis pertains strongly to a specific topic (e.g. Commuter Rail ridership growth, or a specific Crazy Transit Pitch you made), feel free to post it there instead. This post is mostly as a "general" data thread for things that don't fit elsewhere.
Examples of topics discussed here: (You don't have to limit to these; also, feel free to suggest more to this list)
- Service levels, either scheduled or actual
- e.g. How does the new summer schedule improve or reduce service on various lines? Are they actually meeting the schedules?
- Ridership
- e.g. Which bus routes have the highest ridership on weekends? Are more people commuting to Cambridge or from Cambridge via the Red Line?
- Speed and travel time
- e.g. How did a slow zone affect travel times? How much more unreliable is the SL5 bus compared to the Orange Line?
- Demographics
- e.g. How many people are within a 10-minute walk to each station? What are the densest suburbs that are still not served by public transit?
- Employment and travel patterns
- e.g. Where are Kendall's workers located? Which major destinations for Roxbury residents deserve improved one-seat rides? How many riders are using buses for non-commute purposes?
Useful Official Resources: (Feel free to add more)
- MBTA Open Data Portal - The one-stop solution for most, if not all, official MBTA data. Examples include:
- Ridership on all modes, sometimes even down to specific stops and trips (e.g. the 7:03 am trip on bus route X)
- The more detailed ridership data that show each stop's boardings and alightings are usually only available for Fall schedules
- Monthly ridership data is updated more frequently, although they don't account for transfers
- Gated Station Entries for rapid transit per day are updated frequently, but they lack data for most Green Line surface stops
- Headways, arrival/departure times, and travel times for rapid transit and buses (in actual service)
- Headways for rapid transit (in actual service)
- Rapid transit stop distances
- Speed restrictions
- Service Delivery Policies
- Various maps: Service areas, Bus Network Redesign archives
- Ridership on all modes, sometimes even down to specific stops and trips (e.g. the 7:03 am trip on bus route X)
- MBTA Passenger Surveys
- Detailed demographic surveys of riders, including some unique information such as trip purpose, mode of access, transfers, etc.
- 2023 Passenger Survey - the most recent version; they plan to release data every year from now onwards
- 2015-17 Passenger Survey - more detailed but more dated
- Bus Route Profiles
- As part of the Better Bus Project and released in 2018, they're extremely informative reports of every single bus route
- Cover route description, service levels, ridership patterns, reliability, and more
- 2014 MBTA Blue Book
- Easy visual lookups for ridership, rolling stock, track schematic, etc.
- e.g. They have a visual diagram of the subway map with each station's ridership
- Data is a bit outdated, but I believe this is the most recent Blue Book that's publicly available
- GTFS Archives
- Archives of all schedules for various modes dating back to 2009
- Extremely technical and requires dedicated tools for parsing, though
- (MassDOT) MassGIS data layers
- Primarily for geographical data (e.g. maps of routes and stops)
- U.S. Census Data - for demographics and employment, including:
- Census Bureau Map - interactive explorer for both the Decennial Census and ACS datasets mentioned below
- Decennial Census
- American Community Survey - more detailed (e.g. income, commute, vehicle ownership), but some datasets report with coarser granularity
- LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES)
- Employment data with both origin and destination (e.g. How many Chelsea residents work in Longwood?)
- Most easily accessed with interactive web app OnTheMap
- Also, while not its intention, OnTheMap is also the most convenient tool that lets you query the population of an arbitrary polygon
Useful Third-Party Resources: (Feel free to add more)
- Various web apps by TransitMatters Labs, including but not limited to:
- Main Data Dashboard - service, travel time & slow zones, ridership, etc.
- COVID Recovery Tracker
- "New" Train Tracker - now shows all trains, old & new
- Shutdown Tracker
- NETransit MBTA Vehicles Inventory page
- Detailed list of inventories and histories for all rapid transit lines and bus garages
- NETransit MBTA Route History page
- Extremely detailed histories of all bus routes; still being updated
- Travel Time Map
- The "walkshed app", or more generally, shows you reachable areas within X minutes on mode Y
- TransSee
- Real-time transit tracker that, despite basic UI, gives you way more flexible access to GTFS schedules, vehicle locations, etc. than all the fancier apps
- @Teban54's Population Density Map, overlaid with transit lines and their "walkshed" populations
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