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NYC Bus Ridership Up 11% POSTED January 24, 2008 NEW YORK -- MTA Bus Company President Thomas Savage announced that MTA Bus ridership had posted year-over-year ridership growth of 11.1% in 2007, comparing the 10-month period of March through December 2006 with the same period from 2007. (The months of January and February were excluded from the comparison because it was not until February 2006 that the agency fully assumed the operations of routes formerly operated by seven private companies franchised by the City of New York.) MTA Bus, which operates a network of 46 local routes in Brooklyn and Queens and 35 express routes in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Yonkers, carried an average of 367,900 riders per weekday, an increase of 9.7% compared with 2006. Ridership increases were even greater on weekends, with a 2007 average of 196,300 riders (a 15.1% increase) on Saturdays and 138,900 (a 13.0% increase) on Sundays. "Thanks to a number of initiatives we've undertaken, MTA Bus is now the fastest growing segment of the MTA network," Savage said. "When we assumed the operations of the seven private carriers, we were charged with rationalizing and improving operations that had not changed in at least a decade and in many cases far longer. We are making those much-needed changes and riders are responding." Savage attributed the increasing ridership to five MTA Bus initiatives: - Improved reliability, including revised schedules to more accurately reflect traffic conditions and improved bus operator availability, and extensive bus maintenance overhauls to improve fleet availability and reliability - Improved customer amenities resulting from: - Large-scale maintenance efforts undertaken to repair and restore air conditioning and heat on older buses and enhancing cleanliness throughout the fleet - The replacement of fleets of old buses with 475 new high capacity, high customer amenity express buses and 284 new environmentally friendly hybrid-electric local buses - Achievement of 100 percent wheelchair accessibility for the MTA Bus fleet - Improved customer information, with updated timetables now available on the MTA's website at mta.info/busco/schedules - Improved scheduling as MTA Bus increased the frequency and hours of service on routes where ridership levels indicate the need - The revision and extension of travel paths on selected routes to serve new markets, improve connections, and provide more direct, faster service MTA Bus's local routes, two in Brooklyn and 44 in Queens, saw the most rapid growth within the agency, while significant growth in off-peak ridership on both express and local routes was also notable. The MTA Bus Company was created in September 2004 to consolidate and operate routes formerly run by the seven private companies, began assuming operations in January 2005 and took complete control on February 20, 2006.

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