Posts about Ridership

The Brunswick Line is arguably the most complicated of MARC's 3 lines. It's certainly the longest, running for 73 miles northwest through Montgomery and Frederick Counties and on to Martinsburg, West Virginia, with a 13.5-mile branch line to Frederick.

In addition, like MARC's Camden Line, it runs on tracks owned and controlled by freight carrier CSX. And it is constrained, despite growing ridership, because CSX refuses to allow MARC to add trains until the State of Maryland funds and builds a third track.

On weekday mornings, Brunswick Line trains bring people from Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia to jobs in Montgomery County, the District, and Alexandria and Arlington. On weekday afternoons and evenings, Brunswick Line trains take them home.

Meanwhile, there are big plans for the future along the line. Montgomery County is encouraging transit-oriented development on its part of the Brunswick Line. Frederick County is doing the same in and near Frederick. Even West Virginia is getting in on the act.

But good policy requires good data. So, where do the ridership data come from, and what do they show?

MARC's counting method

The data come from counts conducted on Wednesday, February 8, and Wednesday, March 14. MTA passed out the data at the monthly MARC Riders Advisory Council meeting on April 19.

On count days, conductors are supposed to count everybody who gets on and off their train at each station. The total number of people getting on and off each train is supposed to be equal.

The boarding numbers are misleadingly precise. That is, a count of 123 eastbound boardings on Frederick on March 14 does not mean that exactly 123 people got on. However, the numbers are still useful, as they are probably generally accurate, and anyway, they are the only numbers available.

The Brunswick Line overall

The Brunswick Line accounted for roughly 1/5 of total MARC boardings, while the Penn Line accounted for roughly 2/3, and the Camden Line accounted for the rest. Here is a comparison of Brunswick Line boardings to MARC's other two lines:

MARC Line	Direction/Total	February 8	March 14
Brunswick Line	Eastbound (am)	3,898	4,102
Brunswick Line	Westbound (pm)	3,562	3,844
Brunswick Line	Total	7,460	7,946
Camden Line	Total	4,965	4,711
Penn Line	Total	22,911	26,218

On both days, there were more eastbound than westbound boardings on the Brunswick Line. This may be a precision error, or there may actually have been 300-some people each day who went to work on MARC and home a different way.

Montgomery County

Montgomery County has 11 stations: Silver Spring, Kensington, Garrett Park, Rockville, Washington Grove, Gaithersburg, Metropolitan Grove, Germantown, Boyds, Barnesville, and Dickerson. Rockville and Silver Spring are major destination stations as well as origin stations.

9 daily trains in each direction currently make stops in Montgomery County. 2 eastbound and 4 westbound daily trains currently stop at all of the county stations.

Here are the boardings for Montgomery County:

Direction/Total	Station/Total	February 8	March 14
Eastbound	Total	1,844	2,082
	Germantown	780	837
Westbound	Total	1,170	1,071
	Silver Spring	605	654
	Rockville	419	312
	Other*	146	105
Total		3,014	3,153

The data show three notable facts:

1. Germantown is a big station, by MARC standards. It's the biggest station in Montgomery County and on the Brunswick Line overall, and it's bigger, in terms of one-way boardings, than all Camden Line stations and all but 4 Penn Line stations (Odenton, Halethorpe, BWI, and Penn Station). (This comparison excludes Union Station.)

2. Rockville and Silver Spring are not the only destination stations in the county. People also ride MARC to jobs in Germantown, Metropolitan Grove, Gaithersburg, Garrett Park, and Kensington.

3. On the March 14 count day, there were more eastbound boardings at Montgomery County stations than at all other stations on the Brunswick Line combined.

The Frederick branch

The Frederick branch has 2 stations: Monocacy and Frederick. The trains run on a 13.5-mile line that branches off just east of (and not connecting to) the Point of Rocks station. The State of Maryland built and owns most of the track. Currently, 3 eastbound trains leave from Frederick between 5:12 and 7:10 am, and 3 trains bound west for Frederick leave Union Station between 3:50 and 6:30 pm.

Here are the boarding numbers (all eastbound) on the Frederick Line:

Station	February 8	March 14
Total	442	408
Frederick	150	123
Monocacy	292	285

The Frederick branch opened in 2001 with 3 eastbound and 3 westbound trains. Projected ridership was 1,600 by 2005, with double the number of trains. Obviously, Frederick ridership is still much less; on the other hand, the number of trains is still the same as in 2001. That more frequent trains would increase ridership is a reasonable assumption.

Brunswick and Point of Rocks

There are also 2 stations in Frederick County that are not on the Frederick branch: Point of Rocks and Brunswick. Currently, 6 eastbound trains leave Brunswick between 5:00 and 7:40 am, and 6 daily westbound trains stopping at Brunswick and Point of Rocks leave Union Station between 3:35 and 7:15 pm.

Here are the boarding numbers at Point of Rocks and Brunswick:

Direction/Total	Station/Total	February 8	March 14
Eastbound	Total	1,135	1,162
	Brunswick	687	677
	Point of Rocks	448	485
Westbound	Total	29	17
	Brunswick	28	15
	Point of Rocks	1	2
Total		1,164	1,179

Brunswick is the second-biggest origin station on the Brunswick Line, and Point of Rocks is roughly tied for third with Gaithersburg.

The eastbound boarders include residents of Virginia and West Virginia as well as Maryland. However, there do not seem to be any data on how many.

Some of the westbound boardings may represent West Virginia residents who work in Kensington, Gaithersburg, Metropolitan Grove, or Germantown, and transfer from a Brunswick-bound train to the West Virginia super-express that leaves Union Station at 4:55 pm. In Montgomery County, the super-express stops only in Silver Spring and Rockville.

West Virginia

West Virginia has 3 stations: Harpers Ferry, Duffields, and Martinsburg. Currently, 2 eastbound trains leave Martinsburg at 5:25 and 6:30 am, and 3 trains bound west for Martinsburg leave Union Station between 4:55 and 7:15 pm.

Here are the boarding numbers (all eastbound) at the West Virginia stations:

Station	February 8	March 14
Total	477	450
Martinsburg	199	183
Duffields	173	175
Harpers Ferry	105	92

West Virginia no longer contributes to MARC funding. Eastern Panhandle legislators are trying to do something about this. Meanwhile, since 2009, West Virginia riders have paid a surcharge of $2 per one-way ticket, $20 per weekly ticket, and $80 per monthly ticket.

Car ownership

When I first looked into this, I found a surprising amount of households in Georgetown without any cars. That number has increased.

Here are the numbers from 2000:

• Total households without any car: 20%
• Total households with just one car: 57%
• Total households with two or more cars: 23%

Here are what the ACS was the average from 2005-2009:

• Total households without any car: 22%
• Total households with just one car: 50%
• Total households with two or more cars: 28%

In one way this is good news, since 2% more household are going without cars, but in another way it's worse since 5% of households have become multi-car households. It's important to remember that there are rather high margins of error on these numbers, so it's tough to say what's changed, if anything, since 2000.

What I see as most important is that the numbers appear to confirm that somewhere around 1 in 5 Georgetown households gets along without a car.

The numbers aren't even from the east to the west side. The east side has way more carless households (26%!) but has a lot more multi-car households, too (32%). The west side's numbers are more balanced (15% no car households and 23% multi-car).

In 2000, Georgetown was estimated to have 4936 cars. The ACS now estimates Georgetown has 4559 cars. That would appear to be an 8% drop in cars. If that's the only true statistic, that would be good enough news.

Commuting mode share

According to the 2000 census, here's how Georgetowners got to work:

• Drive to work: 46% (38% drive alone, 7% carpool)
• Transit: 16%
• Bike: 4%
• Walk: 25%
• Other: 9%

Here are the updated numbers:

• Drive to work: 40% (35% drive alone, 4% carpool)
• Transit: 22%
• Bike: 3%
• Walk: 25%
• Other: 10% (mostly people who work at home)

If these numbers are accurate, they represent a big shift towards transit. People driving to work fell 13% and transit use increased by 38%(!) The ACS now estimates that fifty percent of Georgetowners get to work by bus, bike or foot.

Perhaps this shift can be attributed to the introduction of the popular Circulator bus, or perhaps it's simply a shift in population. Either way, it demonstrates that the car is not king in Georgetown anymore.

Cross-posted at the Georgetown Metropolitan.

Saturday's ridership patterns appear to be basically what one would expect, although with some notable attributes in places. Metro's ridership on the day of the rally was the highest for any Saturday in the system's history, with over 825,000 trips.

The above graphic shows the number of entries (blue) and exits (dark red) by hour throughout the Metro system.

There's nothing shocking here. Both entry and exit numbers exhibit a double peak, as we would expect. Interestingly enough, the earlier (pre-rally) peaks are higher than the later (post-rally) peaks. This is probably due to a few different factors.

I would hypothesize that some people took their time going home, perhaps stopping at a restaurant, bar, or museum. Others may have been discouraged from taking the Metro home based on their morning experiences.

Many riders started their trips in the suburbs, so let's look there first. In the graphic above, we can see entries and exits at Shady Grove throughout the day. The hour beginning at 11 o'clock was the peak entry period, with close to 3,000 entries in that hour (50 persons/min, average). A double peak in the 6p hour and 8p hour for exits would indicate that there were two surges of riders coming home.

I find it puzzling as to why the hour from 7:00-7:59p has a dip, instead of a number of exits similar to the adjacent hours.

Columbia Heights also shows an interesting time distribution. Like Shady Grove, the 11 o'clock hour is the peak entry period. The peak is not as defined, however.

Entries don't really drop off until after 2p. Even more interesting is the absence of an exit peak. People seem to have trickled back to Columbia Heights (or avoided Metro altogether). Perhaps urbanites are more likely to do other things in the city than hop on the first train home.

Note: since Columbia Heights is not an end-of-line station, we don't know the directionality of those boarding. Most AM passengers were probably headed to the Rally, however.

Activity at this Smithsonian is precisely what one would expect, since the station was one of the closest to the site of the Rally.

Prior to the Rally, the station experienced a growing increase in exits which peaked between 11:00 and 11:59p. There was a slight drop-off for the period from 12:00 and 12:59, perhaps because there were throughput issues on the Metro or perhaps because the Rally was starting. But then there was a huge spike in exits between 1:00 and 1:59.

As we expect, from 4:00-6:59p, there is a large number of entries. This includes a peak at 4p and a smaller peak at 6p.

Smithsonian had more exits than any other station in the system for the whole day on Saturday with 46,738 exits.

Gallery Place exhibits what we expect for a downtown station not too far from the site of the rally. A peak in exits similar to those at Smithsonian can be seen, though the peak is smaller. Entries peaked earlier than those at Smithsonian. And except for a dip from 6-6:59 (dinner?), entries remained high, though with a dropping trend, throughout the evening.

This station had more entries than any other station in the system for the whole day on Saturday with 50,969 entries.

The above graph shows entries and exits at all Red Line stations between noon and 12:59p. The stations are arranged linearly from the A [Shady Grove] Route (left) to the B [Glenmont] Route (right).

This chart does not represent the fullness of a train operating from left to right. It only shows entries and exits in a linear format, like the Red Line. It is incapable of demonstrating where people exited the Red Line to transfer to other lines. So the Metro Center number only shows entries and exits of the faregates, not transfers. Those number do show people who entered or exited Metro Center, Gallery Place, and Fort Totten and used lines other than the Red Line.

These ridership numbers aren't earth shattering in their patterns, even if they are in sheer volume. But they do reveal some interesting dips and spikes. What do you find most interesting about these graphs?