A new report from the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) was released today which shows that ridership increases at the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) led the nation in 2011 in terms of large bus transit agencies. COTA’s ridership grew over the previous year by 10.2 percent.
“This is a significant achievement,” says new COTA President and CEO W. Curtis Stitt. “COTA has been focused on growing our service and improving the quality of our product. The community has responded by getting aboard.”
COTA provided 18.7 million passenger trips in 2011, which marked the highest ridership levels in 12 years. On the national level, transit ridership was up by 2.3 percent. Further, COTA is already showing increases in 2012 with ridership up 6.1 percent in January 2012 over January 2011.
“We are encouraged that as commuters try COTA to minimize the impact of higher fuel prices on their budgets, they respond favorably to our service and many become long-term users of transit,” says Stitt. “By putting a quality product on the street and carry forward with growing our service, we can continue to welcome new riders.”
The full APTA 2011 ridership report can be found at www.apta.com. More information can be found online at COTA.com.