NTD ID 66140 · Reduced Reporter

Cherokee Nation Department of Transportation

Cherokee Nation Department of Transportation carried 109,133 boardings in FY2015 at $8.55 per ride and $8.08 in subsidy per ride. Ten years of NTD data, by mode.

Tahlequah, OK Oklahoma Non-UZA
Also known as CNDT
FY2015 boardings
109.1K
vs FY2014
Cost per ride
$8.55
$11.32 in 2024 dollars
Subsidy per ride
$8.08
operating cost less fares
Fare recovery
5.5%
fares average $0.47 per ride
Passenger miles
average trip — miles
Operating cost
$933.3K
$21.80 per revenue hour
Rides per resident
Rides per revenue hour
2.55
42.8K hours operated
Passengers aboard
average at any moment, passenger miles over vehicle miles
Average speed
18.02 mph
in revenue service, stops and traffic included
Cost per vehicle mile
$1.21
what running a mile costs, before anyone boards

What those two numbers mean

Passengers aboard is passenger miles divided by vehicle miles: how many people are on board on average, at any moment. It is the missing term in cost per ride. A service carrying twenty people per vehicle mile and one carrying half a person can spend the same on fuel and wages and arrive at wildly different costs per passenger.

Average speed is vehicle miles divided by vehicle hours, including every stop and every red light. It is the hidden term in cost per mile, because cost per mile is cost per hour divided by speed. A bus network slowing from 13 mph to 11 becomes a fifth more expensive per mile with no change in wages and no change in service.

Profile

Agency profile

As filed with the National Transit Database.

Contact

Legal name
Cherokee Nation
Doing business as
Cherokee Nation Department of Transportation
Address
17675 S Muskogee Ave
PO Box 948
Tahlequah, OK 74464-5492

Organization

Organization type
Tribe
Reporter type
Reduced Reporter
Fiscal year ends
September 30, 2024
Reporting since
FY2015

Service area

Population served
Urbanized area
Oklahoma Non-UZA · 1.99M people
Vehicles at maximum service

Services operated

Each mode has its own page, with its own ridership, cost and safety.

Ridership

Ridership

Cherokee Nation Department of Transportation reports annually. NTD publishes monthly figures for full reporters only.

Monthly boardings

NTD publishes monthly figures for full reporters only. This agency reports annually, so its ridership appears in the yearly chart alongside.

Annual boardings

Ten-year series

Cost

Cost and subsidy

Dollar figures are shown as reported and again in current dollars.

Cost and subsidy per ride

As reported

In 2024 dollars

The same series with inflation removed

Why cost per ride moved

Indexed to FY2015 = 100

Cost per ride is the cost of an hour of service divided by the riders carried in that hour. It can only rise for two reasons: service got dearer to produce, or fewer people rode it.

Where the money goes

Operating cost by function

Who pays for it

Federal, state and local funding, 2011 to 2024

Operating and capital money together, in the dollars of each year. Fares are not in this file — FTA took them out of the funding series in 2022 — so "directly generated" here means advertising, concessions, park and ride and taxes the agency levies itself. The farebox is charted above.

Capital

Capital spending

What was spent on building, rebuilding and replacing, shown beside the cost of running the service rather than folded into it.

FTA publishes the capital files from 2022 onward, and this agency does not appear in them.

Peers

Compared with similar systems

97 agencies serve an urbanized area of similar size, carry a similar number of riders, and run unknown as their main service.

Cost per ride
$8.55
better than 89% of peers
Subsidy per ride
$8.08
better than 88% of peers
Fare recovery
5.5%
better than 48% of peers
Rides per resident
not enough peers to rank

Cost per ride against peers

This agency in blue, peer median dashed

Rides per resident against peers

How much the place uses what it has

Peer detail

Agency Urbanized area Population Boardings Rides / resident Cost / ride Subsidy / ride Fare recovery
Cherokee Nation Department of Transportation this agency Oklahoma Non-UZA 1.99M 109.1K $8.55 $8.08 5.5%
San Juan, PR 1.84M 107.7K 0.34 $18.26
Baltimore, MD 2.21M 102.9K 0.43 $53.75
Portland, OR--WA 2.1M 93.7K 2.53 $31.14 $30.56 1.9%
Portland, OR--WA 2.1M 128.3K 0.3 $26.90 $26.08 3%
Mississippi Non-UZA 2.1M 92.6K $28.66 $28.19 1.7%
Sacramento, CA 1.72M 121.8K $73.64 $71.78 2.5%
Washington Non-UZA 1.9M 139.7K $7.97
San Juan, PR 1.84M 138.2K 0.76 $4.82
Riverside--San Bernardino, CA 2.28M 88.3K 0.28 $60.03 $56.90 5.2%
Denver-Aurora, CO 2.37M 132.8K $25.93 $25.91 0.1%
Peer median (97 agencies) 0.67 $26.90 $26.50 6.6%

By mode

By mode

Each service this agency runs, for FY2015. Directly operated and purchased service are summed.

Boardings by mode

Annual, stacked

Cost per ride by mode

FY2015

Mode detail, FY2015

Mode Service Boardings Passenger miles Revenue hours Operating cost Cost / ride Subsidy / ride Fare recovery
Demand Response Purchased transportation 107,660 42,069 $887,117 $8.24 $7.77 5.7% Detail →
Bus Purchased transportation 1,473 748 $46,162 $31.34 $30.94 1.3% Detail →

Safety

Safety

Collisions, fires, derailments and security events reported to NTD. Only complete years are shown.

Safety

Safety and security events are published in the monthly file, which covers full reporters only. This agency does not appear in it.

Fleet

Fleet, workforce and reliability

How old the vehicles are, how many people run them, and how far they get between breakdowns. NTD publishes all three from 2022 onward.

Revenue vehicles
28
FY2024
Average age
3.43 yrs
weighted across the fleet
Past useful life
0%
0 vehicles at or beyond FTA's benchmark
Miles between failures
all mechanical failures, revenue miles

How the fleet has aged, 2015 to 2024

Average vehicle age, weighted across every mode the agency runs

A rising line is not automatically bad and a falling one is not automatically good: a fleet gets younger the year an agency takes delivery, and older every year it does not. What the shape shows is whether replacement is steady or comes in bursts. The table below says how many vehicles are actually past the life FTA expects of them.

Vehicles, and how many are accessible

Active revenue vehicles against those meeting the ADA standard

Fleet age

FTA's default useful life benchmark for each class, from the Transit Asset Management rule

Vehicle type Count Average age FTA benchmark Past FTA benchmark Past own benchmark
Van 28 3.43 yrs 8 yrs
0%

All years

Full annual series

Every year this agency reported, as published.

Year Boardings Passenger miles Revenue miles Revenue hours Operating cost Fares Cost / ride Subsidy / ride Fare recovery
2015 109,133 771,425 42,817 $933,279 $51,000 $8.55 $8.08 5.5%