Urban public transit, February 2025
Released: 2025-04-17
Highlights
In February, 121.5 million passenger trips were made on urban transit networks in Canada, down 7.5% from February 2024, or 9.9 million fewer rides.
This year, February experienced severe winter conditions in many parts of the country and had 28 days, compared with 29 days in 2024.
Data on total passenger trips and operating revenue for selected urban transit agencies are available in table 23-10-0307-01.
Ridership recovery wanes
Urban transit agencies in Canada provided 121.5 million passenger trips in February 2025, down 7.5% (or 9.9 million fewer rides) from February 2024. This was the first year-over-year decline in ridership since April 2021, when ridership began recovering after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ridership in February 2025 was 79.0% of the pre-pandemic level recorded in February 2019 (153.8 million), with about 32.3 million fewer passenger trips.
On a monthly basis, a small seasonal dip of roughly 2% in ridership was observed from January to February in the two years (2018 and 2019) prior to the pandemic. However, the 10.7 million fewer passenger trips in February 2025 represented a sharper decrease (-8.1%) from January 2025.
This monthly decline in ridership observed in February partly reflected unusual winter snowstorms, which coincided with fewer passengers riding transit to work or school. Indeed, the Labour Force Survey estimated that 429,000 employees lost work hours as a result of snowstorms in parts of Central and Eastern Canada in February 2025. This was more than four times the average number of employees who lost work hours because of weather conditions in February over the previous five years (96,000). In addition, severe winter weather in British Columbia's Lower Mainland caused school closures and impacted transit operations.
Financial situation still lagging
In February 2025, despite the sharp decline in ridership, transit agency operating revenue (excluding subsidies) edged down 0.8% from the same month in 2024 to reach $297.7 million, which was $37.0 million lower than the pre-pandemic level observed in February 2019.
Chart 1
Urban public transit operating revenue and passenger trips, monthly, 2019 to 2025
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Note to readers
Statistics Canada is publishing more detail from the Monthly Passenger Bus and Urban Transit Survey. The new table 23-10-0307-01—Passenger bus and urban transit statistics, by Urban transit agency—includes operating revenue and ridership at the city level for selected transit agencies. Statistics Canada appreciates the cooperation of the 15 transit agencies in making this information available to Canadians.
Survey data are revised on a monthly basis to reflect new and updated information.
The data in this release are not seasonally adjusted.
This survey collects data on operating revenue (excluding subsidies) and the number of passenger trips from a panel of urban transit companies that represents at least 75% of revenue in each province and territory. Note that the panel is adjusted annually to maintain the 75% coverage and could differ slightly from what it was in the same month the previous year.
One-time payments from secondary and post-secondary institutions for academic-year student passes are typically reported as revenue during the early fall and early winter months.
Data prior to January 2017 can be found in table 23-10-0078-01.
Random tabular adjustment
The random tabular adjustment (RTA) technique, which aims to increase the amount of data made available to users while protecting the confidentiality of respondents, was applied to the totals of the Monthly Passenger Bus and Urban Transit Survey.
Using RTA, Statistics Canada identifies sensitive data and randomly adjusts values rather than suppressing them. The size of the adjustment is calculated to protect respondent confidentiality.
The Transportation Data and Information Hub, featuring data from Statistics Canada, Transport Canada and partners, provides Canadians with online access to comprehensive statistics and indicators for the country's transportation sector.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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