CTA Ridership

Daily average ridership figures by bus route and station for a given month (January through December) and day type (Weekday, Saturday, or Sunday). These figures are calculated by dividing the total boardings on a route or station by the number of days (for a particular day type) in a month.

Data is available from 1999 through the current year. Ridership reports are sent to the RTA by CTA staff on a monthly basis.

Source: https://www.transitchicago.com/ridership

CTA Average Bus Ridership (CTA_Average_Rail_Station_Ridership_1999_2022.csv)
ROUTE: The CTA bus route
YEAR: The data year
MONTH: The data month
DAY_TYPE: The type of day (Weekday, Saturday, or Sunday)
AVG_RIDES: The average daily ridership figure

CTA Average Rail Station Ridership (CTA_Average_Rail_Station_Ridership_1999_2022.csv)
NAME: The name of the CTA station
YEAR: The data year
MONTH: The data month
DAY_TYPE: The type of day (Weekday, Saturday, or Sunday)
TOTAL_RIDES: The total monthly rides
DAILY_AVG_RIDES: The average daily ridership figure

Occasionally, a bus operator may enter the route number incorrectly into the fare box. If it is not possible to determine what the route number should have been, CTA considers the route unspecified and assigns it the route number 0.

Special event services are assigned the route number 1001.