Worldwide Public Transit Statistics

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Minato Ku

New York subway ridership count unlinked trips. Passengers doing transfers between subway lines are counted twice. It's the same for many other US network.
For comparison Paris métro or London underground ridership just count passengers entering in the network. Passengers transferring lines are not counted twice.
The real ridership of New York subway in 2024 was 1,195 million in 2024 when using using the same calculus method.

https://www.mta.info/agency/new-york-city-transit/subway-bus-ridership-2024

No. Your own link shows NYC subway had nearly 4 million paid riders in 2024. These are unique trips, and not double counting for transfers, like in the APTA numbers. Also not including free riders like employees, schoolchildren and obviously those evading fares.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Minato Ku

New York subway ridership count unlinked trips. Passengers doing transfers between subway lines are counted twice.

No, this is not true. Passengers transferring subway lines are not counted twice.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by isaidso

I'm always surprised how far down the list Toronto falls when it comes to metro system ridership but it bears mentioning that the Toronto Transit Commission only had jurisdiction over the City of Toronto. Up until 1998, the City of Toronto was a fairly small municipality of 650,000 people.

In 1998, the City of Toronto amalgamated with 5 neighbouring municipalities. It will take a long time to build out the whole system beyond the Old City of Toronto boundaries so North York, Etobicoke, York, East York and Scarborough become properly served. That said, metro system ridership for the TTC should soar over the coming decades with the construction of the Ontario Line and other expansions.

Originally Posted by Northern Light

This is not correct. The TTC, prior to amalgamation, was under the jurisdiction of Metro Toronto, the regional government which covered the same boundaries as the amalgamated city.

Yep. I remember the Yonge Street line extension work in 1971. Yonge Street north of Sheppard around, I guess, what is now the North York City Centre area, was a MESS. As for the "Metro" boundary, the "Entering Metro Toronto" (with population) sign on Yonge was a few hundred feet south of Steeles next to the shopping mall that still stands there.

[Minato Ku]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

No, this is not true. Passengers transferring subway lines are not counted twice.

They are counted twice when transferring in APTA figures used by Yuri for New York City in the list.

The data items are reported as the number of unlinked passenger trips. Unlinked passenger trips are defined as the number of passengers who board public transportation vehicles. Passengers are counted each time they board vehicles no matter how many vehicles they use to travel from their origin to their destination.

https://www.apta.com/news-research/public-transit-statistics/ridership-data/

If you look the 2024 unlinked ridership figure for New York subway, the number is 2,040,132.0 million.
https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2025-Q4-Ridership-APTA.pdf

Yuri is not to blame for this error, he just used Wikipedia where they don't clearly differiate. It's almost a comparison of apples and oranges.
Thid is a tricky difference that only transit geeks or specialists know.

To better understand.
If I take line 7 and line 1 in New York subway in my commute to work, I'm counted as two passengers. What is called unlinked passenger trips.
However in Paris metro data, if I use line 7 and line 1 of Paris metro in my commute to work, I'm counted as just one passenger.
I've used Paris here but this is how ridership data are calculated in most subway systems, same in London. A subway trip that include a transfer is counted as just one subway trip.

Originally Posted by Crawford

No. Your own link shows NYC subway had nearly 4 million paid riders in 2024. These are unique trips, and not double counting for transfers, like in the APTA numbers. Also not including free riders like employees, schoolchildren and obviously those evading fares.

My point was about the figure used in the list, not the figure on the MTA website link I've posted in my previous post.
The MTA link shows figures like they are calculated in most subway network all around the world. Fare collection figure.

[Minato Ku]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Bringing Germany:

---------- System -- Stations - Lenght - Annual Ridership (millions)

Berlin ------- U-Bahn/S-Bahn ----- 343 --- 495.6 km --- 1,010.3
München ------ U-Bahn/S-Bahn ----- 246 --- 529.0 km ----- 722.0
Hamburg ------ U-Bahn/S-Bahn ----- 161 --- 253.4 km ----- 504.4
Frankfurt ---- U-Bahn/S-Bahn ----- 198 --- 367.9 km ----- 273.6
Köln --------- Stadtbahn --------- 236 --- 199.0 km ----- 236.2
Düsseldorf --- Stadtbahn --------- 166 ---- 98.7 km ----- 173.0
Nürnberg ----- U-Bahn/S-Bahn ----- 142 --- 372.4 km ----- 147.4
Rhein-Ruhr --- S-Bahn ------------ 181 --- 475.0 km ----- 130.0

A very unique place: here the exponential density of transit doesn't apply. It's all proportional showing how well served the smaller cities are.

Munich is mind-blowing: a 2.5 million people metro area and rivals the transit famous Berlin.

I've just noticed something wrong in this list.
Köln Stadtbahn seemed very high and I got the answer why in German wikipedia.
"236,2 Mio. im Jahr 2024 inkl. KVB-Busverkehr"
This includes the buses operated by the same company KVB.

I think it's the same for Dusseldorf whose figure is also suspicously high. Note that Dusseldorf data from Wikipedia is from 2012.
In 2024, this figure would be of 204.7 million and this include bus.
https://duesseldorf.t-online.de/region/d...hrgast-rekord-finanzlage-angespannt.html

This is the issue when only looking figure on Wikipedia, especially when it's not in native language of the area, it's often a mix of wrongly compiled data.