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This analysis is flawed as it is based off passenger numbers that include passengers transferring through the airport. This is why ATL seems so low. The reali

This analysis is flawed as it is based off passenger numbers that include passengers transferring through the airport. This is why ATL seems so low. The reality is that ATL's passenger numbers includes a huge fraction of people transferring from one flight to another, (much more than other airports) none of which are ever going to take a train, because those passengers have no need to leave the airport. Conversely, many of the airports with relatively high ridership probably have a greater fraction of passengers terminating or originating their trips there. The analysis really needs to look at the passenger numbers for trips originated/terminated. Not the passengers merely boarding planes there.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
zymhan 10y ago
Yeah, I was surprised to see Atlanta on there too. Comparing hubs like ATL and JFK and ORD to desinations like PDX and Montreal is not a fair analysis.
mgbmtl 10y ago
Yep, most of the airports compared have a much higher rate of transfers than Montreal. People rarely transfer in Montreal. Toronto is a much bigger hub. This is the second click-bait titled article from this author on the topic. It seems more like an exercise in stats, with very little actual context.
Programmatic 10y ago
Indeed. That was the first thing that caught my eye in the graph since I enjoy using the MARTA system in ATL when I go there and it's pretty busy. It didn't pass the sniff test when I saw that. I did some quick digging. The term to google to get local traffic without connecting passenger info is "origin and destination", and it looks like O&D is about a third of the overall traffic[0] since there are ~45m total enplaned annually and of that ~15m enplaned from origin. Doubling the enplaned number to get the enplaned and deplaned number would be about 82k daily average. With 10k daily metro riders, 12% ridership seems pretty good. [0]: "ATL is anchored by a large, local traffic base with 15 million O&D enplaned passengers for fiscal year (FY) 2014." https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fitch-upgrades-atlanta-ga-passenger-205500804.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fitch-upgrades-atlanta-ga-pas...
- ant6n 10y ago
  I invite you to dig up _comparable_ origin/destination data for all the reported airports, for the different years the transit ridership was available. Then I shall update the graph. But it's not going to change the fact that ridership of airport transit connectors is low, building expensive rail transit to connect 5K or 10K people is a waste of money. Building cheap rail (i.e. connect to the airport as part of another project) may make sense. Failing that, you're just going to have to use common sense to obviously realize the Atlanta is not going to do well in this particular comparison. Just like I actually did in the article, where I was being relatively generous with my analysis.
  - crazytony 10y ago
    Generous like this table from your article? cost(2013$) riders(thousand) cost/rider O-Train (lrt) 27M$ 14 1901$ ... If you don't understand why your table is extremely flawed then you should pull this article. If you do understand then you are being disingenuous not generous.
    - ant6n 10y ago
      I was generous in that I ignored the worse performing data-points according to the heuristic I picked. I wrote that the projected REM ridership doesn't look outrageous, just optimistic, and suggested that placing Montreal at the 80% instead of the 90% percentile may be more realistic. Did you even read the text? Regarding your unrelated attack, how is it possibly flawed to ask for a transit project to bring a certain number of riders relative to its cost, no matter the mode? This is a standard way to get an idea of the effectiveness of a transit project. These are back of the envelope calculations that are pretty fuzzy (this is not programming or math, folks), but they are incredibly useful and very easily reveal fishy projects. I wish the public would be more vigilant, even doing very simple calculations like this is helpful -- then maybe in North America we could waste less money on stupid prestige projects, and spend more money on actually building useful transit. I find your suggestion that I should pull my article extremely unhelpful. We here in Montreal are currently being duped by a semi-private entity to waste a shit-ton of public money on a deeply flawed transit project, while useful projects sit waiting. I want to write about that because I think people should understand how its flawed. If you don't give a fuck about Montreal or Quebec, fine. But don't try to shut me up based on nitpicks that miss the point. If you want to tear down a bunch of bullshit, maybe do something useful and go write about the REM project yourself.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

zymhan 10y ago

Yeah, I was surprised to see Atlanta on there too. Comparing hubs like ATL and JFK and ORD to desinations like PDX and Montreal is not a fair analysis.

mgbmtl 10y ago

Yep, most of the airports compared have a much higher rate of transfers than Montreal. People rarely transfer in Montreal. Toronto is a much bigger hub. This is the second click-bait titled article from this author on the topic. It seems more like an exercise in stats, with very little actual context.

Programmatic 10y ago

Indeed. That was the first thing that caught my eye in the graph since I enjoy using the MARTA system in ATL when I go there and it's pretty busy. It didn't pass the sniff test when I saw that. I did some quick digging. The term to google to get local traffic without connecting passenger info is "origin and destination", and it looks like O&D is about a third of the overall traffic[0] since there are ~45m total enplaned annually and of that ~15m enplaned from origin. Doubling the enplaned number to get the enplaned and deplaned number would be about 82k daily average. With 10k daily metro riders, 12% ridership seems pretty good. [0]: "ATL is anchored by a large, local traffic base with 15 million O&D enplaned passengers for fiscal year (FY) 2014." https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fitch-upgrades-atlanta-ga-passenger-205500804.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fitch-upgrades-atlanta-ga-pas...

ant6n 10y ago
I invite you to dig up _comparable_ origin/destination data for all the reported airports, for the different years the transit ridership was available. Then I shall update the graph. But it's not going to change the fact that ridership of airport transit connectors is low, building expensive rail transit to connect 5K or 10K people is a waste of money. Building cheap rail (i.e. connect to the airport as part of another project) may make sense. Failing that, you're just going to have to use common sense to obviously realize the Atlanta is not going to do well in this particular comparison. Just like I actually did in the article, where I was being relatively generous with my analysis.
- crazytony 10y ago
  Generous like this table from your article? cost(2013$) riders(thousand) cost/rider O-Train (lrt) 27M$ 14 1901$ ... If you don't understand why your table is extremely flawed then you should pull this article. If you do understand then you are being disingenuous not generous.
  - ant6n 10y ago
    I was generous in that I ignored the worse performing data-points according to the heuristic I picked. I wrote that the projected REM ridership doesn't look outrageous, just optimistic, and suggested that placing Montreal at the 80% instead of the 90% percentile may be more realistic. Did you even read the text? Regarding your unrelated attack, how is it possibly flawed to ask for a transit project to bring a certain number of riders relative to its cost, no matter the mode? This is a standard way to get an idea of the effectiveness of a transit project. These are back of the envelope calculations that are pretty fuzzy (this is not programming or math, folks), but they are incredibly useful and very easily reveal fishy projects. I wish the public would be more vigilant, even doing very simple calculations like this is helpful -- then maybe in North America we could waste less money on stupid prestige projects, and spend more money on actually building useful transit. I find your suggestion that I should pull my article extremely unhelpful. We here in Montreal are currently being duped by a semi-private entity to waste a shit-ton of public money on a deeply flawed transit project, while useful projects sit waiting. I want to write about that because I think people should understand how its flawed. If you don't give a fuck about Montreal or Quebec, fine. But don't try to shut me up based on nitpicks that miss the point. If you want to tear down a bunch of bullshit, maybe do something useful and go write about the REM project yourself.