Public transportation systems across the United States are expected to see steady demand and growth in 2025 and possibly hitting 90% of pre-pandemic levels by 2027, according to the latest report on the sector from S&P Global Ratings.
The report highlights that most modes of transportation will continue to increase steadily from 2025 to 2027.
Average annual growth rates are expected across the board, with growth rates of 2.8% for enplanements, 6.3% for transit ridership, 1% for port containers, and 1.5% for vehicular traffic.
The estimates include cooling gross domestic product growth to 2% from the initially estimated 2.7% in 2024. S&P said this will contribute to rates comparable to pre-pandemic numbers.
The report shows the increase in ridership, recovering to 80% in 2025, 85% in 2026, and 90% in 2027.
The generally positive outlook shows public transit ridership “potentially plateauing” at about 90% of pre-pandemic levels by 2027. However, the report suggests that outside influences, such as employees no longer working from home, could stimulate ridership.
According to the National Transit Database, ridership peaked at 10.7 billion unlinked passenger trips. However, it has declined nearly yearly, with 9.9 billion unlinked passenger trips reported in 2019.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, unlinked passenger trips plummeted to 4.7 billion, dropping ridership by just over half in one year. This heavily impacted agencies nationwide that rely on ridership to pay a portion of operational costs.
“A continued rise in the cost of living could influence some city residents to opt for mass transit in place of other forms of transportation, such as ride-hailing services and car ownership, underpinning our forecast for further recovery in mass transit ridership,” the authors wrote in the report.
Ridership increased 17.3% in 2023, with 6.9 billion reported passenger trips compared to the previous year.
The analysis from S&P stated that, due to the usage patterns of mass transit passengers, the sector could potentially be approaching a new baseline.
However, the report also states that additional recovery will depend on demographic shifts and policymakers’ decisions, noting that now, five years after the start of the pandemic, employers are beginning to “tighten their in-office policies.”
