Burlington Transit Ridership From Hamilton

[Beedok]

Does anyone know how many Hamiltonians make use of Burlington Transit? Just with them having a bus from downtown to Burlington's employment centres that seems like a possible angle. I just trying to figure out if low HSR ridership really means the whole city doesn't use much transit, or if it's just a case of ridership getting spread across jurisdictions and being annoying to measure. (I'm guessing there's a mix of both.)

[HillStreetBlues]

Here is a count of ridership on Route 1. I don't know why I can't find the full survey.

For what it's worth, I have taken the 1 twice, and on both times found the bus strangely empty, given that I was going to catch a Go train. But it has pretty good frequency, so it must have some ridership (this might not be good logic to apply to HSR, but I am assuming that Burlington Transit assigns resources according to some level of reason).

The 1 (and the 101) is the only Burlington route that serves Hamilton. I can't imagine it poaching a significant number of riders relative to HSR's entire ridership. I'd be curious about the specific number, too.

[thistleclub]

As is true of most transit systems, Burlington Transit's routes are busiest in the rush hours — stand at King & James 6-8am or York & Bay 4-6pm and you'll see the volume.

The "peak hour" is deceptive because by the time you reach peak hour, commuters using BT have largely left Hamilton — that volume is at least a half-hour ahead of the curve, because once you factor in either a GO train connection and the travel time to a city down the line or a laggy BT transfer, Hamilton commuters are obligated to start earlier. Downtown Hamilton-to-Mapleview/Burlington GO is Burlington Transit's biggest fare-generating segment. It's why when they rejigged the service in 2013 they not only halved the headways but also were able to rationalize the introduction of the 101 express service. (In the case of this chart, it's also a westbound peak, so you're seeing bus capacity essentially holding firm from the Burlington GO to Dundurn Castle, then draining sharply.)

Inbound Burlington Transit buses won't pick up passengers inside of Hamilton and outbound buses seem to have negligible stops on the RBG lands so IMHO it's not likely to be poaching significant ridership from the 8 York or 9 Rock Gardens or 11 Parkdale lines -- especially when you consider that BT cash fare is almost $1 more than the HSR.

More data:

Route 1 West (Non Rush Hour - Peak Hour)
+
Busiest Direction Rush Hour Seated Capacity Utilization
Busiest Direction Non-Rush Hour Seated Capacity Utilization
Accumulated Passenger Boardings Based on Passenger On-Off Count November 2010 (Rush/Non-Rush Hour Capacity by Route)
Revenue Ridership and Total Boardings (2010 vs 2011 Comparison)
Revenue/Cost Ratio By Route (2010 vs 2011 Comparison)

[matt602]

I used to take the BT 1 bus into Burlington to get to a job at Mainway and Walkers Line every day. When I'd go in in the morning, the bus was almost empty for the most part but coming back into Hamilton in the afternoon it'd usually be very packed. A lot of people would get off with me at King and James and walk over to the B-Line bus at Main and Macnab to continue East.

This was almost 10 years ago and way before they introduced the 1X Plains Express bus so I'm sure things have changed a bit.