Saturday, June 26, 2010

Revised farebox ratios including weekend service

Commenter George K found a mistake I made back in May, in calculating weekend farebox recovery ratios for New York City Transit buses. Even though it clearly says (and I clearly repeated) that the average weekend fare was $1.29, higher than the weekday average of $1.14, I used the $1.14 figure to calculate the recovery ratio.

I've put up a new spreadsheet with the revised figures, along with averages for the entire week. Weekend service actually lifts five bus routes (like the Q58) into the rarefied realm of operating surplus, but brings four routes (like the Bx40/42) down below 100%.

Here are the 23 routes that earn an overall operating surplus or at least break even. Thanks, George!

RouteWeekday Farebox Recovery RatioTotal Weekday Cost Recovery RatioWeekend Farebox Recovery RatioTotal Weekend Cost Recovery RatioOverall Operating Cost Recovery Ratio
M86173%90%172%91%172%
M23161%84%123%65%148%
B74141%75%132%69%138%
Bx12136%71%139%73%137%
M79133%70%134%70%133%
Bx19125%66%134%70%128%
M16116%61%103%54%113%
M14111%58%113%59%111%
M34116%61%103%54%111%
Bx35109%57%115%61%111%
M66116%61%94%50%110%
B35104%54%117%62%109%
M96/106107%56%110%58%108%
Bx9102%53%116%61%106%
Bx3105%55%104%55%104%
Bx39103%54%106%56%104%
B12102%54%104%55%103%
Q5898%52%108%57%102%
B397%51%109%58%102%
B4696%51%112%59%101%
Bx6101%53%102%53%101%
B697%51%106%56%100%
B3699%52%102%53%100%

4 comments:

George K said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
George K said...

You're welcome.
It seems to me that the weekday farebox recovery ratio is what really determines how efficient the bus route is overall. The rankings for the routes in the order of their overall efficiency were similar as their weekday efficiency. (I guess this would be because there are 5 weekdays vs.2 days on the weekend). In a few cases, it was the weekday efficiency that determined whether or not a route was profitable, since the weekend profits had to be well over 100% to bring the overall efficiency over 100% if the weekday profit was below 100%.

George K said...

Just a few more comments:

If a subway can carry 15 times more people than a bus can, even considering that the extra cars require higher maintainance costs and more of a capital cost, I could picture some high ridership lines' operating costs per passenger being mere pennies, probably 10-15 cents on some lines (considering that the M86 costs 66 cents per passenger).

George K said...

I have also heard that NYCT Buses have a farebox recovery ratio of 36% and the subway has a farebox recovery ratio of 67%. Now that I see these numbers, that is probably all operating plus administrative costs and capital costs.
With the express buses, we see the disadvantage of peak-direction service. The costly deadheads bring up the cost per passenger significantly. We notice how the fairly even headways throughout the day result in the operating costs on the X1/X10/X17 being drastically lowered compared to weekday service, even though buses usually aren't as crowded as weekdays.