MTA Subway Hourly Ridership Estimates for New York City

2020-2024 data provides hourly ridership estimates by subway station complex and fare payment class. The dataset is published by the State of New York and covers the New York City Transit system, Staten Island Railway, and Roosevelt Island Tramway. It was last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Analyze hourly ridership patterns by station complex to optimize transit scheduling and staffing.
• Compare ridership volumes across different fare payment classes such as MetroCard and OMNY.
• Model the impact of external events on passenger counts using the hourly temporal granularity.
• Study transfer patterns between subway stations, tramways, and railways within the system.

Strengths

• Covers a multi-year period from 2020 to 2024, enabling longitudinal analysis.
• Includes data for multiple transit systems: New York City Transit, Staten Island Railway, and Roosevelt Island Tramway.
• Provides hourly granularity for detailed temporal pattern analysis.
• Distinguishes ridership by fare payment class, a key operational variable.

Limitations

• Specific row count, column count, and data size are unknown, making it difficult to assess computational requirements.
• Data from 2020-2024 may be influenced by atypical pandemic-era travel patterns, limiting generalizability.
• The 'notspecified' license may create uncertainty for commercial or redistribution use cases.

Provenance

Source

State of New York

Collection Method

Ridership estimates provided on an hourly basis by subway station complex and fare payment class.

Time Range

2020-2024

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-03-14, indicating recent maintenance.

Geography

New York City, covering the New York City Transit system, Staten Island Railway, and Roosevelt Island Tramway.