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© 2024 Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute is a research and education center at North Dakota State University.
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 Research Reports |
| Title: | Rural Transit Fact Book, 2024 |
| Authors: | Jeremy Mattson and Dilip Mistry |
| Publication Date: | Jun 2024 |
| Report #: | DP-325 |
| TRID #: | 01928818 |
| Keywords: | demographics, financing, ridership, rural transit, transit operating agencies, travel behavior, trend (statistics) |
| Type: | Research Report – Department Publications |
Photo Source: Amy Biggs, Snoqualmie Valley TransportationPublic transportation plays a fundamental role in the livability of communities of all sizes. The Rural Transit Fact Book provides information on transit service availability and cost to help the transit industry in the United States provide efficient and effective service to meet rural community mobility needs. Financial and operating statistics can be used by agency managers, local decision makers, state directors, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), and lawmakers to assist in policy making, planning, managing operations, and evaluating performance.
The Rural Transit Fact Book serves as a national resource for statistics and information on rural transit in America. This publication includes rural demographic and travel behavior data as well as financial and operating statistics for agencies receiving Section 5311 funding. In addition to national-level data, statistics are presented by state, FTA region, tribe, and mode, as well as other agency characteristics.
The rural transit data presented in this report were obtained from the National Transit Database (NTD). The 2011 edition of the Rural Transit Fact Book was the first published by SURTC/SURCOM and included NTD data for 2007-2009. Since 2011, updates have been made to the book to provide updated data. The 2024 edition includes 2022 data from the NTD as well as additional data from the American Community Survey.
As noted, this publication presents data for transit providers receiving Section 5311 Formula Grants for Rural Areas. This program provides funding to states to support public transportation in rural areas with populations of less than 50,000. Several rural transit providers also receive funding under the Section 5310, Enhanced Mobility of Seniors and Individuals with Disabilities, program. However, nationwide data for 5310 services are not available, as providers are not required to report such data to the NTD. Therefore, rural transit providers not funded by the 5311 program but receiving funding from Section 5310 are not included in this report. Also excluded from the report are providers that receive strictly non-federal funding and those receiving both Section 5311 funds and Section 5307 Urbanized Area Formula Program funding and report their data in the urban NTD.
The following reports are listed by publication date in reverse chronological order.
Mattson, Jeremy, and Dilip Mistry. Rural Transit Fact Book 2024, DP-325. North Dakota State University, Fargo: Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, 2024.
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