Some months ago, I put in for a TXPIA request to Metro for their ridership numbers from 2003 - 2006. Just recently I put in for a second ridership request backdating the new request to 1997. I am in the process of putting together a spreadsheet which will have all ridership data for all bus routes, along with Metro rail (including boardings at each station). The dataset as it is will have about 20,000 pieces of data in it, but I am optimisitic I can have an incomplete version posted within 2 weeks and a completed on done within 2 months.
The TXPIA request comes back in the form of hardcopy printouts, ergo I tried to scan them in and post the numbers online. After getting a few unsatisfactory results, it dawned on me that it would be much more interesting to simply go through the effort of creating a spreadsheet and then lots of things could be more readily observed, such as correlating whether people do ride transit more often when gas prices are high.
I am also in the process of gathering together old information on Metro system maps from the past. The effects of route changes can then be noticed.
Enough for now. This will keep me busy for a while.
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at March 4, 2007 08:54 AM