FY2025
Most riders
Annual unlinked passenger trips: every boarding, counted once.
Ranked among agencies carrying at least 1,000,000 boardings in FY2025. The floor matters: per-ride figures for a service carrying a few thousand people a year swing wildly and would otherwise fill both ends of this table.
| # | Agency | Location | Most riders | Cost / ride | Subsidy / ride | Fare recovery |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brooklyn, NY | 3.01B | $3.70 | $2.49 | 32.7% | |
| 2 | Chicago, IL | 338M | $6.07 | $5.01 | 17.6% | |
| 3 | Los Angeles, CA | 315.5M | $8.40 | $7.95 | 5.4% | |
| 4 | Washington, DC | 304.7M | $9.96 | $8.45 | 15.2% | |
| 5 | Boston, MA | 269M | $9.19 | $7.56 | 17.8% | |
| 6 | Newark, NJ | 226.2M | $13.90 | $9.98 | 28.2% | |
| 7 | Philadelphia, PA | 222.6M | $7.22 | $5.97 | 17.3% | |
| 8 | San Francisco, CA | 168.4M | $6.91 | $6.25 | 9.5% | |
| 9 | New York, NY | 134.3M | $8.12 | $6.75 | 16.9% | |
| 10 | New York, NY | 102.2M | $22.11 | $15.30 | 30.8% | |
| 11 | Seattle, WA | 94.4M | $11.47 | $9.87 | 14% | |
| 12 | Miami, FL | 81.7M | $9.69 | $8.73 | 9.9% | |
| 13 | San Diego, CA | 81.2M | $5.06 | $4.10 | 18.9% | |
| 14 | Houston, TX | 78.7M | $11.09 | $10.56 | 4.7% | |
| 15 | New York, NY | 78.5M | $21.61 | $13.14 | 39.2% | |
| 16 | Baltimore, MD | 70.6M | $16.90 | $15.90 | 5.9% | |
| 17 | Atlanta, GA | 66.2M | $11.51 | $10.39 | 9.7% | |
| 18 | Portland, OR | 65.8M | $12.19 | $11.21 | 8% | |
| 19 | New York, NY | 64.3M | $10.12 | $7.34 | 27.4% | |
| 20 | Denver, CO | 63.9M | $15.82 | $14.85 | 6.1% | |
| 21 | Oakland, CA | 58.4M | $15.75 | $11.57 | 26.5% | |
| 22 | Las Vegas, NV | 57.3M | $6.26 | $5.15 | 17.6% | |
| 23 | Dallas, TX | 54.3M | $14.32 | $13.49 | 5.8% | |
| 24 | Minneapolis, MN | 51M | $11.82 | $11.05 | 6.6% | |
| 25 | Seattle, WA | 50.9M | $13.84 | $12.37 | 10.6% | |
| 26 | Honolulu, HI | 43.3M | $9.59 | $8.51 | 11.2% | |
| 27 | Oakland, CA | 40.7M | $14.73 | $13.57 | 7.8% | |
| 28 | Salt Lake City, UT | 40.4M | $10.94 | $10.00 | 8.6% | |
| 29 | Orange, CA | 38.6M | $9.49 | $8.54 | 9.9% | |
| 30 | Chicago, IL | 38M | $26.98 | $22.37 | 17.1% | |
| 31 | Pittsburgh, PA | 37.2M | $13.58 | $11.85 | 12.8% | |
| 32 | San Antonio, TX | 31.4M | $9.61 | $9.06 | 5.8% | |
| 33 | Phoenix, AZ | 28.2M | $9.00 | $8.46 | 6% | |
| 34 | San Jose, CA | 27.7M | $18.45 | $17.43 | 5.5% | |
| 35 | Austin, TX | 26.5M | $15.83 | $15.25 | 3.7% | |
| 36 | White Plains, NY | 25.5M | $7.86 | $6.83 | 13.1% | |
| 37 | Milwaukee, WI | 25.4M | $7.00 | $6.04 | 13.7% | |
| 38 | Fort Lauderdale, FL | 25M | $10.14 | $9.17 | 9.5% | |
| 39 | Cleveland, OH | 24.5M | $13.06 | $11.76 | 10% | |
| 40 | Saint Louis, MO | 22M | $14.89 | $14.01 | 6% | |
| 41 | Orlando, FL | 21.5M | $9.92 | $8.93 | 10% | |
| 42 | Mineola, NY | 20.7M | $8.24 | $6.65 | 19.3% | |
| 43 | Long Beach, CA | 19.7M | $6.52 | $6.01 | 7.8% | |
| 44 | Olympia, WA | 19.4M | $19.32 | $15.53 | 19.6% | |
| 45 | Rockville, MD | 19.2M | $9.23 | $9.16 | 0.7% | |
| 46 | Tucson, AZ | 18.8M | $5.61 | $5.07 | 9.6% | |
| 47 | Albany, NY | 18.5M | $7.97 | $6.65 | 16.5% | |
| 48 | Sacramento, CA | 17.6M | $14.94 | $13.85 | 7.3% | |
| 49 | Arlington Heights, IL | 17.3M | $16.88 | $15.70 | 7% | |
| 50 | New York, NY | 16.7M | $12.01 | — | — | |
| 51 | Charlotte, NC | 16.6M | $14.39 | $13.56 | 5.8% | |
| 52 | Buffalo, NY | 16M | $10.33 | $8.52 | 17.5% | |
| 53 | New Orleans, LA | 15.4M | $9.32 | $8.58 | 8% | |
| 54 | Los Angeles, CA | 15.4M | $10.70 | $10.50 | 1.8% | |
| 55 | Detroit, MI | 14M | $9.87 | $9.21 | 6.7% | |
| 56 | Cincinnati, OH | 13.5M | $12.78 | $11.41 | 10.8% | |
| 57 | Columbus, OH | 12.9M | $18.78 | $17.76 | 5.4% | |
| 58 | Providence, RI | 12.9M | $10.68 | $9.43 | 11.7% | |
| 59 | Madison, WI | 12.5M | $6.03 | $5.16 | 14.5% | |
| 60 | Richmond, VA | 12.3M | $7.47 | $7.27 | 2.7% |
A caution on reading these tables. A low cost per ride usually means dense, well-used bus or rail service; a high one usually means demand-response service, which carries one or two people per trip by design and costs many times more per boarding. Comparing a paratransit operator to a subway on this measure compares two different jobs.