Vancouver's transit system had a pretty good year, statistically, in 2020.
Riders on local buses, boats and trains had fewer stops, shorter commutes and shorter walks than Canadians in other big cities, apparently. That's according to Moovit, a mobility app company with users around the world.
While overall use of public transit dropped across Canada and the globe, the effect wasn't the same everywhere. In Vancouver, the average commute time dropped, from 45 (2019) to 43 minutes. That was the shortest of Canada's three biggest cities (Toronto and Montreal being the other two that data was released about) and the second shortest in North America (after Pittsburgh).
Vancouverites also faced fewer transfers more often had short commutes than Toronto and Montreal (and most American cities), the shortest wait times at stops (for weekday commutes) and the shortest overall commute by distance.
While the 2020 stats compared favourably to the 2019 stats in Vancouver that wasn't the case for all cities; in both Montreal and Toronto commute times went up in 2020. It should be noted that 2020 was definitely an abnormal year for transit, though.
"At the lowest point in 2020, some cities in Canada experienced more than an 80 per cent drop in public transportation ridership," states Moovit in a press release.
"It’s an understatement to say that with many residents working from home, avoiding mass transit, and vast changes in local transit services, the way people travel within their cities has changed."
When asking transit users what they'd like to see from the transit system, the most popular answer in Vancouver was a higher frequency of transit and shorter wait times at stops. The second was lower fares and the third was accurate schedules. These were also the top answers for all of Canada, but globally transit crowding was the third biggest concern.
Moovit's study, titled Global Public Transport Report 2020, includes data from around the world.
We analyzed tens of millions of trip requests in 100+ cities across 28 countries, combined with user research, to see how people moved in a COVID-19 world.🌎
— Moovit (@moovit) January 26, 2021
The result? 🧐 Moovit’s 2020 Global Public Transport Report.
How did your city rank?
👉 https://t.co/mTBMUC93LH
