DETROIT (Michigan News Source) – Amidst hiring struggles across the country, the Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) bus system finds itself struggling to maintain ridership.
DDOT consistently served more than a million passengers per month before the pandemic. Between June and October of 2019, the number of riders on city bus routes outnumbered 2 million passengers per month, with an average of 70,000 riders on a given day.
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However, during the pandemic the city of Detroit opted to cancel fares to reduce the contact between drivers and passengers, limited the rider capacity, and whittled down the amount and frequency of transit route offerings.
March 2021 saw a reinstatement of fares, but it was not until July that the initial limit of 10 to 15 riders per bus was lifted to the original bus maximums of 60 to 80, depending on the size of the bus.
Still the DDOT buses have not seen passenger numbers rise above a million since March 2020, and the closest ridership has been 845,646 in March 2022 according to statistics provided by the Detroit Department of Transportation.
As reported by the Detroit Free Press, Deputy Director of DDOT Maryanne Walsh claimed the DDOT farebox revenue has been in decline since the 2019 fiscal year. From July 2018 to June 2019 the DDOT received $18.1 million in fares, but in the 2021 fiscal year earned $2 million, and in the 2022 fiscal year earned $7.3 million.
In order to address declining riders, the Detroit Department of Transportation has designed a plan to adapt to its users input.
DDOT Reimagined will be a plan to rethink the fixed route bus network, improve operations, and create new mobility options according to the Detroit Department of Transportation.
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During the summer, the department hosted numerous meetings in all of the districts, in the hope that the input will lead to a draft plan. The final plan and beginning of implementation will not be finalized until Fall 2022 according to the DDOT Reimagined site.
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