Bus ridership in the Centre Region is on the rise this fall, and the Centre Area Transportation Authority is pointing to a few factors behind the upswing.
Overall, CATA ridership is up 5.5% this fall compared to last year. On some of CATA’s most popular bus routes, ridership is up 20%, and midday it’s up 30% on some routes, according to CATA.
“Our ridership is up across the board, and on some of our routes it’s up dramatically," said David Rishel, CATA’s executive director and CEO.
Rishel pointed to redesigning some routes and increasing the frequency of buses on popular routes as reasons behind the increase.
He said that in the past CATA would send extra buses to busy stops as needed. But those extras were not included on the schedule or app, so a rider might not know the extra bus was on the way.
“This year we decided to put all those buses on the schedule," he said. "We try to put as much service as we can on the schedule.”
He said that may be behind another surprise: “Not only is our ridership up significantly, our complaints are down significantly.”
Rishel said CATA is on track to break 5 million rides this year, which hasn’t happened since before the COVID pandemic.
“It’s nice to have CATA back in a position where we’re expanding and increasing services to the Centre Region instead of cutting them back," Rishel said.
