MATA COSTS – Taxpayer Justice

MATA Costs I Ridership I National On Demand I National BRT

BUS TRANSIT COSTS – 2023

The following costs were compiled, for 10 public transit peer city service areas, from the National Transit Database. The costs include fixed route Motor Buses (MB), to include rapid transit (RB) directly owned (DO) or purchased transportation (PT) from a contractor provider. The chart below ranks average trip costs from least to most. The corresponding table includes other cost, trip and service area information.

FIXED ROUTE BUS TRANSIT AVERAGE TRIP COST

wdt_ID	CITY SA	SA Pop Density	Op Expend	Avg Trip Cost	Avg Trip Mi	Per Mile Cost
1	Milwaukee	3,789	143,431,925	6.41	3.3	1.96
2	Kansas City	1,355	89,813,778	7.62	3.4	2.27
3	New Orleans	5,202	74,543,991	8.54	4.0	2.14
4	Nashville	1,397	86,572,272	11.09	4.0	2.77
5	Oklahoma City	2,767	31,299,346	11.81	5.1	2.31
6	St. Louis	2,801	155,466,760	12.43	5.8	2.14
7	Louisville	2,586	78,767,507	13.38	3.3	4.07
8	Indianapolis	2,448	104,026,348	15.49	5.0	3.11
9	Birmingham	2,913	28,065,081	16.70	4.9	3.42
10	Memphis	2,469	40,605,562	18.39	5.6	3.30

FY22 COSTS

wdt_ID	CITY SA	SA Pop Density	Op Expend	Avg Trip Cost	Avg Trip Mi	Per Mile Cost
1	Milwaukee	3,914	138,341,524	7.47	3.5	2.13
2	Kansas City	1,355	83,935,339	8.23	3.4	2.40
3	Nashville	1,397	56,969,798	9.40	4.6	2.05
4	Oklahoma City	2,767	23,129,874	10.40	5.2	2.00
5	New Orleans	5,202	80,140,434	10.90	3.9	2.77
6	St. Louis	2,801	151,420,526	12.96	5.1	2.53
7	Louisville	2,556	75,569,035	15.05	3.5	4.35
8	Birmingham	2,913	26,857,855	15.87	5.1	3.13
9	Indianapolis	2,448	93,461,512	16.68	4.4	3.79
10	Memphis	2,374	46,506,412	18.71	5.6	3.36

DEMAND RESPONSE COSTS – 2023

The following costs were compiled, for 10 public transit peer city service areas, from the National Transit Database. The costs include non-fixed route Demand Response (DR) services, to include directly owned (DO), purchased transportation (PT) or taxi service (TX). The chart below ranks average trip costs from least to most. This document was recently obtained in May 2024, from MATA, regarding more current on demand costs, than what was obtained from the FTD as shown below. The corresponding table includes other cost, trip and service area information.

NON-FIXED ROUTE DEMAND RESPONSE AVERAGE TRIP COST

wdt_ID	CITY SA	SA Pop Density	Op Expend	Avg Trip Cost	Avg Trip Mi	Per Mile Cost
1	Memphis	2,469	7,914,912	31.31	6.9	4.52
2	Louisville	2,586	16,286,508	45.21	9.8	4.63
3	Milwaukee	3,789	16,895,033	48.16	6.6	7.30
4	Kansas City	1,355	22,180,752	50.63	8.3	6.13
5	Nashville	1,397	24,728,770	69.48	10.2	6.78
6	New Orleans	5,202	16,107,795	71.11	8.2	8.68
7	Birmingham	2,913	8,364,139	72.40	9.7	7.46
8	St. Louis	2,801	22,439,438	75.81	11.9	6.35
9	Oklahoma City	2,767	4,880,793	107.88	8.0	13.47
10	Indianapolis	2,448	19,845,535	125.19	11.1	11.28

FY22 COSTS

wdt_ID	CITY SA	SA Pop Density	Op Expend	Avg Trip Cost	Avg Trip Mi	Per Mile Cost
1	Louisville	2,556	13,136,186	40.90	9.0	4.54
2	Memphis	2,374	8,636,307	42.25	7.4	5.71
3	Kansas City	1,355	14,442,381	43.80	6.8	6.49
4	Milwaukee	3,914	15,453,883	46.65	6.6	7.02
5	Nashville	1,397	15,330,172	49.33	9.9	5.00
6	St. Louis	2,801	22,051,500	62.77	11.8	5.32
7	Birmingham	2,913	7,420,237	78.95	11.3	6.97
8	New Orleans	5,202	17,212,223	91.10	8.7	10.50
9	Indianapolis	2,448	14,229,639	95.41	10.5	9.13
10	Oklahoma City	2,767	4,716,538	103.29	8.5	12.20

MATA OnDemand Public Information Request Response – Per public information response, MATA OnDemand Cost for FY23 $7,746,116 with 353,757 riders. The average trip cost would be $21.89. The average trip length was not part of the request. But assuming FY22 average trip length of 7.4 miles, the average cost per mile would be $2.96 per mile. $2.96 per mile is below average cost per the Federal Transit Database but attainable based on the achieved cost in other service areas.

BUS TRANSIT COSTS – 2023

DEMAND RESPONSE COSTS – 2023

Operating Expenditures >