Everything has changed: The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the transit market in Montréal, Canada

Abstract

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the transit market leading to ridership loss and service cuts. Most of the post-pandemic transit market literature has focused on how to attract those who stopped using transit services, however little attention has been given to how rider profiles have changed. To address this gap, we examine 2019 and 2022 data regarding transit commuters from Montréal, Canada. We apply factor and k-means cluster analyses to derive market segments at both points in time considering satisfaction levels, telecommuting rates, and frequency of transit use. We build upon these analyses to report on overall and mode group-level changes in the transit market. Our market segmentation reveals that captive, captive-by-choice, and choice riders still exist in the current public transit market. However, the share of these groups in the market has changed. The proportion of captive and choice riders has increased while captive-by-choice riders have shrunk in size. Moreover, the post-pandemic market has become mostly composed of infrequent riders and higher rates of telecommuting. We further explore these trends by commute mode (i.e., bus only, metro only, and bus and metro users). The findings from this research can be of interest to practitioners and policymakers as they shed light on the evolution of the perceptions and behaviours of segments of transit riders from before to after pandemic.