Ridership data is the pillar that transit agencies rely on to serve their community.
Knowing which routes to expand, where to add stops, and informing passengers of crowding ahead of time optimize the rider experience and agency resources. If ridership data is inaccurate or unknown, then the health of the transit agency is at risk, which can severely reduce the amount of funding received. That’s why more and more agencies are looking to certify their automatic passenger counters (APCs) with TransTrack APC software and our qualified NTD statistician.
APCs revolutionized the way transit agencies track ridership. Now, electronic sensors or cameras track boarding and alighting activities based on motion versus inefficient manual sampling methods. With APCs, transit agencies bypass the cost of staff time spent riding the bus, counting the data, matching manual data to the cleansed sensor data, and being stalled by ineffective processes when sampling sheets are lost or inaccurate. Although the data collected by APCs is richer and more precise, raw APC data must still be cleansed before it’s ready for aggregation and NTD reporting. Learn more about our APC Module, which uses proprietary data cleansing and expansion methods to attain federal APC Certification and simplify NTD ridership reporting for your transit agency.
Why APC Certification Is Necessary
Data Accuracy
APCs gather a wealth of information like average peak load, 95th percentile value of peak load, and stop-level boarding. However, completed trip information can be missing or include errors. Operator actions, passenger hesitation, doorway transactions, plus inaccurate or non-functioning sensors are variables that can cause these discrepancies. Certification ensures that you’ve taken the right steps to correct inaccuracies.
Statistical Significance
Estimates like aggregated ridership or passenger miles traveled are based off of APC data. During certification, an NTD Qualified Statistician will need to support whichever data processing methodology you use to confirm that the cleansed and expanded data is verified for statistical significance. That way, you can rely on ridership estimates for future planning.
NTD Reporting
The NTD states that “APC data should be processed to correct for anomalies” in addition to other sampling requirements. Before using cleansed APC data for NTD reporting, it has to be certified by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for reporting unlinked passenger trips (UPT), passenger miles traveled (PMT), or both. Certification will help you make the most return out of your APC system since having the system without using it for reporting is a missed opportunity.
Decision-Making
Certified APC ridership data will confidently guide transit agency decisions and boost standing within your community. You’ll be able to:
- Optimize routes based on passenger load to reduce crowding and increase satisfaction
- Intelligently communicate with elected officials to advocate for your transit agency
- Include fare-free riders in your numbers, which is more important than ever because of Covid
The APC Certification Process for NTD Reporting
Your transit agency must attain APC Certification in the following scenarios according to the NTD Sampling Manual:
“You must meet this requirement of getting FTA certification for the first report year for which you use your APC data for NTD reporting, any mandatory recertification year (FY2022, FY2025, FY2028, etc.), and any other year during which you install new and substantially different APC equipment,” states Dr. Xuehao Chu, developer of the NTD Sampling Manual and a qualified statistician for NTD reporting.
Ultimately, there are six main steps to get APC certified:
- Cleanse Raw APC Data
Whichever method you use, it must meet NTD’s validation requirements, be used for the next three reporting years for consistency, and be flexible enough to accommodate special case adjustments. - Validate the APC Data
The FTA has to certify that your APC system is validated for reporting UPT, PMT, or both. This includes a ride-check survey that has to meet the cleansed APC data within a 5% variance. - Develop Expansion Methods
For trips that are without APC hardware or don’t have raw or cleansed APC data, an expansion method will “fill the gap” to more precisely measure ridership KPIs like monthly total UPT, annual total UPT and PMT, and annual daily average UPT and PMT by schedule type. - Certify the Expansion Method for Annual Totals
A qualified statistician who’s knowledgeable in transit rider measurement needs to certify the expansion method you use, again keeping in mind the flexibility of the method for future service changes. - Implement the Cleansing and Expansion Methods
There are a few ways to implement the approved methods, like a spreadsheet, SQL script, or transit software. Depending on the size and resources of your transit agency, using software saves time since it automatically imports APC data and applies cleansing and expansion. - Maintain the APC System
For best results, integrate regular maintenance into your data management to identify problems, troubleshoot expelled data, and act before losing valuable APC information from faulty hardware.
