Page 7 - 2023 Annual Report

TR A N S P O RTATI O N

The Research Bureau released two reports with an interactive recovery in ridership on the WRTA and presented some
dashboard and StoryMap on the Worcester Regional Transit considerations for increasing ridership further. The two charts
Authority. These reports serve as a follow-up to The Bureau’s on this page show the WRTA’s ridership recovery during the
earlier work in 2019 and 2020 on a fare-free WRTA. They delve pandemic. Its rapid return to full-service levels in summer 2020
into the recent finances and ridership of the region’s primary in combination with fare-free service likely aided its recovery;
transit authority, which serves 37 communities in south-central unlike all other RTAs in Massachusetts, the WRTA was well above
Massachusetts, with support from the Barr Foundation. All- 100% of its December 2019 levels in December 2022. Onboard
Aboard: Financing a Fare-Free WRTA was released in March for Data is an interactive version of the two reports referenced
and provided an analysis of the WRTA’s recent revenues and above, and allows readers to examine the budget, commuting,
expenses. It found that the bulk of the WRTA’s operating revenues demographic, and ridership in greater detail.
come from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, with an uptick The Research Bureau received the 2023
in recent years in Federal assistance thanks to the COVID-19 Outstanding Policy Achievement Award for Local/
relief fund, CARES. The remainder of the report considered the Regional Work from the Governmental Research
implications of resuming fare collection, and provided alternative Association for these reports.
sources of operating funds for the WRTA to consider. Since the
report was released, Massachusetts did raise the amount of
operating funds it provided to RTAs from $96 to $150 million in ANNUAL FIXED-ROUTE BUSES RIDERSHIP (FY2005-2022)
its FY24 budget.
In April, The Research Bureau released Resurging Regional
Ridership: An Analysis of Mobility Flows, Riders, and Ridership
in the WRTA Region and the StoryMap, Onboard for Data. This
comprehensive report looked at ridership, commuting, and
demographic data in Worcester and the entirety of the WRTA
region, to provide a picture of the importance of the WRTA to
regional mobility. The report began with an examination of
commuting patterns within Worcester and Worcester County
and followed that with an analysis of demographics in WRTA
communities using both American Community Survey data and
rider surveys from the WRTA itself. Strikingly, the report notes
that in 2018, 65% of surveyed fixed-route riders had incomes
less than $24,999. Finally, the report analyzed the remarkable

MONTHLY RECOVERY RATE (2019 MONTHS AS BASELINE) SCAN FOR MORE:

All-Aboard:
Financing
a Fare-Free
WRTA

Resurging
Regional
Ridership

Onboard
for Data

A N N U A L R E P O R T § 2 0 23 | 7