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US Microtransit Cost Comparison
A free dataset from The Basin  ·  basin.la/data/index.html#us-microtransit-comparison
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The full method, the column definitions and the known limits are written up and
available on request: data@basin.la

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ABOUT THIS DATASET
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US MICROTRANSIT COST COMPARISON
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Every general-public on-demand microtransit program in the United States that files with
the federal government, separated from the ADA paratransit it is filed alongside and from
the rural dial-a-ride it is usually averaged with, for FY2023 and FY2024.

All figures come from the National Transit Database, with nothing taken from an
aggregator, a vendor case study, a news report or an agency's own web copy.


WHAT IS IN THE RELEASE
----------------------

| File | Rows | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| microtransit_programs.csv | 191 | The published cut: general-public, zero-advance-reservation programs above 20,000 annual trips, both years, with cost, productivity, fares, reporter module and service span |
| microtransit_benchmarks.csv | 18 | National reference rates by year. Five groups that partition the universe exactly, four more cuts of interest, and fixed-route bus |
| dr_universe.csv | 4,081 | Every demand-response mode record in both years with trips and expense, 1,949 agencies, carrying all nine classification columns. The file to use if you want a different definition. |


THREE GATES
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Zero advance reservation does the separation. on_demand distinguishes a same-minute
hail from a day-ahead booking, and it is the gate that keeps ADA paratransit out. Access
Services, MTA New York City Transit's paratransit and Pace's all file a one-day minimum and
are excluded by this alone.

Eligibility is answered by two forms that disagree on 1,377 of 4,081 rows, in both
directions. has_psgnr_elig_rqmt_flag reads "no requirement" for several of the largest
ADA paratransit operations in the country. The service-schedule flag errs the other way and
drops canonical microtransit, including High Valley Transit in Park City and the Anaheim
Transportation Network. The published cut therefore takes either signal, and the
stricter rule ships as its own column, is_microtransit_strict, with a benchmark row
pricing the difference.

The reporter module matters most for comparison. Of the 204 programs that qualify as
microtransit in FY2024, 151 are Rural reporters: county councils on aging, community
action agencies and senior centers running same-day dial-a-ride. Averaging those together
with an app-dispatched zone service in a dense city produces a national figure that
describes neither. urban_reporter marks the 53, and comparable_to_metro_micro narrows
further to urban programs running agency or contracted vans rather than buying taxi or
rideshare trips.

| FY2024 group | Programs | Weighted cost per trip | Median | Trips per revenue hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microtransit, urban reporters | 53 | $32.69 | $32.40 | 3.20 |
| Microtransit, rural and tribal reporters | 151 | $21.84 | $25.77 | 2.98 |
| Microtransit, TNC purchase | 8 | $17.86 | $12.77 | 4.59 |
| On demand but not general public | 25 | $57.56 | $44.17 | 1.78 |
| Advance-reservation demand response, mostly ADA paratransit | 1,837 | $52.60 | $39.28 | 1.86 |
| National fixed-route bus, mode MB | | $8.24 | | 23.07 |

The first five partition the universe exactly, and the release gate checks that they do.


PURCHASE MODEL
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An agency running its own vans, an agency paying a contractor to run vans, an agency buying
trips from a taxi fleet and an agency subsidizing Uber rides all file as mode DR, and
their cost per trip does not measure the same thing. A van program buys an hour of a
driver's time; a voucher program buys a completed trip.

The eight FY2024 TNC programs run $12.77 at the median against $35.02 for urban van
programs. comparable_to_metro_micro excludes them.


SOURCES
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- FTA National Transit Database, via data.transportation.gov. Service Data and
  Operating Expenses by Mode, Time Series 2.1 (npsm-38gk); Demand Response Geographic
  Area Coverage, Passenger Eligibility and Fares (i3pw-uwab for 2024, h9qc-expu for
  2023) and Service Schedules (uk25-sge7 for 2024, 4p55-emkp for 2023).
- Mode codes, type-of-service codes and the reporting module are NTD's own. DO directly
  operated, PT purchased transportation, TX taxi, TN transportation network company.

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TERMS: SOURCES AND RIGHTS
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LICENSING TERMS
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The underlying records are public and none of them are ours. National Transit Database
filings are US government works. Mode codes, service-type codes and the demand-response
supplemental forms are the FTA's. None of that is licensed here.

What is licensed here is the assembled product: the classification that separates
general-public microtransit from the ADA paratransit it is filed alongside, the parsing of
a free-text reservation field that four dozen agencies file in a unit the obvious match
misses, the urban and purchase-model gates that decide which programs may be ranked
against which, the national benchmark rates as a true partition of the universe, and the
documented method.

Attribution to The Basin is required in any published use.

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LICENCE
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Free to use, including commercially, with attribution.

    Data processing: The Basin (basin.la)

The records underneath this release are public. Federal figures are US government
works and municipal filings are public records; none of that is ours and none of
it is licensed here. What The Basin built is the assembly: the extraction, the
joins, the derived measures and the documentation. That work is given away with
this release rather than licensed, and you may redistribute it, including as part
of a commercial product, provided the attribution above travels with it.

If a source carries its own attribution requirement, that requirement survives
this grant. The source table is under "Terms" above.

No warranty. The full method and the known limits are available on request:
data@basin.la

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The Basin  ·  basin.la  ·  data@basin.la
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