Findings: Peer City Ridership Comparison

Summary

Among 8 peer mid-size transit agencies, Pittsburgh ties with St. Louis for the lowest overall ridership recovery at 57.6% of 2019 levels (2024 average). Cleveland leads peers at 77.4%. PRT's bus recovery (59.2%) and rail recovery (43.6%) both rank near the bottom of the peer group.

Key Numbers

• Pittsburgh 2024 recovery: 57.6% of 2019 average
• Peer group range: 57.6% (Pittsburgh/St. Louis) to 77.4% (Cleveland)
• PRT bus recovery: 59.2% (7th of 8 peers; only St. Louis lower at 57.8%)
• PRT rail recovery: 43.6% (lowest of all 8 peers)
• Best bus recovery: Cleveland at 83.0%
• Best rail recovery: Baltimore at 64.5%
• All 8 peers remain below 2019 levels as of 2024
• COVID trough (Apr 2020): all peers dropped to ~10–20% of 2019 levels

Observations

• Cleveland's relatively strong recovery (77.4%) may reflect its smaller pre-pandemic base and sustained bus ridership in a less remote-work-prone labor market.
• Bus recovery outpaces rail recovery at all 8 peers without exception. The bus-rail gap ranges from ~2 pp (Minneapolis) to ~28 pp (Cleveland).
• Pittsburgh's light rail (T) at 43.6% is the weakest rail recovery in the peer group, consistent with the T's low frequency and suburban commuter orientation.
• Portland (67.4%) and Baltimore (72.8%) show stronger recovery despite comparable city size, suggesting that service investments and fare policy may matter.
• The indexed time series shows all 8 peers following a similar pandemic trajectory: sharp drop in Apr 2020, gradual recovery through 2021–2022, then plateauing in 2023–2024.
• Pittsburgh's trajectory flattens earlier than most peers, suggesting recovery stalled around mid-2022.

Discussion

Pittsburgh's position at the bottom of this peer group is concerning but not extreme — St. Louis is equally low. The light rail drag is the largest single factor: if PRT's rail had recovered to the peer median (~56%), overall recovery would be ~60%. The bus recovery gap versus peers like Cleveland and Portland suggests room for improvement through service frequency, reliability, or fare initiatives.

Caveats

• Peer selection is subjective; different peer sets could yield different rankings. These 8 were chosen for comparable metro size and multimodal service.
• NTD data aggregates all modes including demand-response (paratransit), which is excluded from the bus/rail breakdown but included in overall totals.
• Recovery percentages compare 2024 monthly average to 2019 monthly average. Seasonal patterns may differ between cities.
• Some agencies may have had major service changes (route restructures, fare changes) that affect ridership independent of pandemic recovery.

Methods: Peer City Ridership Comparison

Question

How does Pittsburgh's ridership trajectory and post-pandemic recovery compare to 7 peer cities from 2019 through 2025?

Approach

• Select 8 peer transit agencies by NTD ID: Pittsburgh (30022), Baltimore (30034), Cleveland (50015), Denver (80006), St. Louis (70006), Buffalo (20004), Portland (8), Minneapolis (50027).
• Sum monthly UPT across all modes and TOS per agency, Jan 2019–Dec 2025.
• Index each agency's monthly total to its 2019 monthly average (= 100) to normalize for size.
• Plot indexed ridership trajectories for all 8 peers.
• Compute 2024 vs 2019 recovery percentage for each peer.
• Break down recovery by mode (bus vs rail) where the agency operates both.

Data

• ntd_ridership — monthly UPT by agency/mode/TOS, filtered to Jan 2019–Dec 2025.
• ntd_agency — agency names and mode codes.

Output

• output/peer_ridership_indexed.png — time-series line chart of indexed ridership for all 8 peers.
• output/peer_recovery_bar.png — bar chart of 2024 vs 2019 recovery %, PRT highlighted.
• output/peer_mode_breakdown.png — bus vs rail recovery by peer city.
• output/peer_ridership_data.csv — monthly indexed data for all peers.
• output/peer_recovery_summary.csv — per-peer recovery metrics.