Toronto's Bike Share system has grown substantially over the past
decade, providing a healthy and sustainable mode of travel to
thousands of Torontonians and visitors. Ridership has increased from
about 665,000 trips in 2015 to over 4.5 million in 2022 (if you
build it they will ride!). In the chart below, one = 25,000 Bike Share trips. Almost every year, ridership records for
daily, weekly, monthly, and annual trips have been broken.
2015 / 665,000 Trips
2016 / 830,000 Trips
2017 / 1,460,000 Trips
2018 / 1,918,000 Trips
2019 / 2,421,000 Trips
2020 / 2,900,000 Trips
2021 / 3,560,000 Trips
2022 / 4,600,000 Trips
That's a lot of trips!
Below we chart this growth month-by-month to track seasonal patterns
of expansion and uptake. We'll hopefully update this page as more
data is released into late 2023 and beyond!
The data presented on this page are sourced from the City of Toronto's Open Data Portal. The data from 2017 onward denote the duration of each trip. We
noticed that there were a number of 'trips' where the duration was
quite low and which started and ended at the same location. We think
that these trips are mostly people unlocking bikes and then locking
them back up because something on the bike is broken or that it
doesn't match their preferences (e.g. the seat height is stuck). As
such, we have filtered out all trips that were less than 2 minutes
and which started and ended at the same station, as we felt these
weren't 'true' trips. Therefore, the numbers presented here may be
slightly different than reported elsewhere.
Bike Share Ridership by Month
(we are missing monthly data from 0ct 2015 to June 2016)
August consistently records the highest ridership between 2019 and
2022, while February tends to have the lowest ridership. In August
2022, the highest monthly ridership reached almost 700,000 rides,
over 200,000 more than the same period in 2021. Colder months
(November to March) have also recently witnessed much higher
ridership compared to previous years. The relatively higher
ridership in Fall 2022 could be attributed to a warmer winter, with November experiencing record-breaking temperatures.
A notable difference in trip patterns occurred during the early
months of the pandemic. While the number of trips usually increased
after February, this was not the case in 2020. After a small growth
in March, the province went into a lockdown on March 24, 2020,
resulting in a drop in ridership in April and lower ridership in May
compared to previous years. However, ridership quickly bounced back
starting in June, and by July 2020, it exceeded the ridership of
August 2019, the highest month in 2019.
The Bike Share system has expanded from 79 in 2014 to 659 by March,
2023. The chart below illustrates this expansion. Before 2020, large
expansions would occur in July, with many stations installed in
either June or July. The pace of expansion slowed in 2021, resulting
in a relatively stable number of stations. In 2022, the expansion
occurred incrementally, with a few stations installed each month.
Number of Operating Bike Share Stations
(we are missing monthly data from 0ct 2015 to June 2016)
We can also calculate average station usage by dividing ridership by
the number of stations. As shown in the chart below, average station
usage also fluctuates seasonally, similar to overall ridership
totals. The lowest usage is typically observed in January or
February, with fewer than 200 rides started from each station during
these months, and much higher usage in the summer months.
Trips Per Station
(we are missing monthly data from 0ct 2015 to June 2016)
While there are clearly seasonal fluctuations, the relative
stability of this chart (each year has approximately the same
pattern) highlights that the rate of trips per station remains
consistent, even as new stations are added to the system. This bodes
well that ridership will continue to increase as new stations are
added to the system.
We can similarly track the growth of the Bike Share fleet. Each bike
in the system is assigned a unique ID, and for any particular month,
we can count how many of these unique IDs there are in the ridership
data. The highest count of bikes was recorded in August 2020, with
6,455 bikes in the system. However, after 2021, the number of bikes
in the system stabilized and did not fluctuate as much as in 2019
and 2020. It is unclear whether Bike Share Toronto stores bikes
during periods of low ridership or if the bikes remain idle at the
stations or both.
Number of Bikes in Operation
(data only available from 2019 onwards)
Trips Per Bike
(data only available from 2019 onwards)
Average bike usage indicates how many times bikes are used on
average each month. Typically, average bike usage exceeds 30 rides
per month starting in April (approximately one ride per day). In
2020, average bike usage did not surpass 30 rides per day until May
due to COVID-19, which resulted in decreased Bike Share usage.
Normally, there are 5-6 months where bikes are used more than twice
per day.
This content was built using Svelte and D3. Code is on GitHub. More to come soon!
= 25,000 Bike Share trips. Almost every year, ridership records for
daily, weekly, monthly, and annual trips have been broken.