2024 Riders Choice Awards

En français svp

2024 was a year full of competition and election ballots. Over 5,000 medals were handed out in the Olympics in Paris, 72 countries went to the polls, and now, it’s time to celebrate the titans of public transit.

Welcome, one and all, to the Riders Choice Awards!

This year, 103,000 transit riders shared their thoughts in the Rider Happiness Benchmarking survey. We dived into the nitty-gritty on everything from how they navigate their city to whether their agency consistently gets them to their destination on time. Now, we’re handing out awards (sans pieces of the Eiffel Tower) to the US and Canadian transit systems that were at the top of their game in 2024. 

The results are in and the numbers have been thoroughly crunched. Now, please welcome our winners to the podium…

All bus drivers are winners in our eyes, so we gave riders the tough job of declaring the most winning-est of them all. It was a tight race, but these operators competed with skill, heart, and smooth braking.

Congratulations to the drivers at C-TRAN in Vancouver, Washington, for taking home the gold! In second place (by a hair!) are the operators right next door at TriMet over in Portland, Oregon. (Is there something in the water at the confluence of the Willamette and the Columbia?) And finally, with back-to-back bronze medals this year and last, Salt Lake City’s UTA drivers round out our winners.

And a special congrats to the most-improved operators of the year: our Ontarian neighbors at Ottawa’s OC Transpo. We hope to see you in the winner’s circle next time!

Riders need to trust that public transit will get them where they need to be, when they need to be there. Just like wizards, happy riders are never late… they arrive precisely when they mean to. 

This year, TriMet in Portland, Oregon, took out the top spot, followed by RTS in Rochester, New York, and VIA Metropolitan Transit in San Antonio, Texas. Your riders were least likely to miss their dinner reservations and important meetings — nicely done!

And lastly, a hearty thank you from riders in the 905 to Brampton Transit, which claims the most improved prize.

Do your riders use public transit to work hard or play hard? Whether they’re heading to their 9-5 or their 5-9, riders in these cities rely on buzzing networks of buses and trains to make it to their destination.

Brampton, Ontario is a well-coordinated hive of activity after Brampton Transit’s pumped-up punctuality power. But don’t count out the five boroughs: while the Yankees couldn’t manage a World Series win this year, the MTA swept the remaining trophies in this category — riders on Staten Island Buses and the New York City Subway were (almost) all business in 2024.

From foggy bayshores to blustery lakesides, social butterflies flourished in San Francisco, Chicago, and the Twin Cities. Riders on Muni, CTA, and Metro Transit were most likely to take transit to their off-the-clock activities.

We love public transit, but sometimes you want to feel the sun on your face and the wind at your back. Luckily, bikes and scooters scratch that itch and get us to our destination on time. Win-win!

Riders on RTD in Denver, Colorado were most likely to roll with two-wheeled options — with such gorgeous parks across the city, who could blame them? Meanwhile, the social butterflies of Chicago’s CTA and Twin Cities’ Metro Transit cruised in on their tandems to claim the last two spots on the list. Metro Transit is also taking home most improved for this category — did anyone bring a cargo bike?

Want to see your city at the top of this category next year? Transit’s new safety-focused bike directions and pedal-by-pedal GO navigation have got your back any time you want to go for a spin.

Every time a city makes it faster, cheaper, and easier to use anything-but-a-car to get around town, a high five goes around the Transit office. Life beyond cars is already a reality for riders in these cities, who told us that a visit to the car dealership is not in their plans for 2025.

San Franciscans are least likely to buy a car in the next 12 months — with all that gridlock, we’ll take Muni’s streetcars and bus lanes any day! Heading east, Chicagoans took the silver while Ontario once again sneaks into the top three with the only small city on the list, repped by Hamilton Street Railway.

When things go wrong, you want to know there’s a helping hand who can set things right.

For riders in Portland, Oregon, TriMet’s customer service team were always there to pick them up, dust them off, and resolve their issues with a calming Pacific Northwest presence. To finish out the category, riders on Salt Lake City’s UTA and OC Bus in Orange County, California, had nothing but heart eyes for their customer service support.

Customer service can be a tough job — our own support team works hand-in-glove with customer service pros at transit agencies from coast to coast. So believe us when we say: we get it, and thank you for everything you do to keep riders happily on track.

Folks, it’s finally time for the big one. 

Drumroll please…

Four times a year, we ask riders to say whether they would recommend their transit agency to friends or family on a scale of 1 to 10. The agencies with the highest ratio of top-rating riders rise to the top.

Riders spoke and we listened: who will be this year’s Most Popular Agency?

Put your hands together for OC Bus! Their staff’s dedication to all things rider experience, from award-winning customer service to providing free Royale for riders (and so much more) have all earned OC Bus the top spot.

For our runners-up, a huge congrats to Ride On of Montgomery County, Maryland, VIA Metropolitan Transit in San Antonio, Texas, as well as most improved Muni in San Francisco. Well done!

It’s not deja vu: OC Bus and VIA Metropolitan Transit were also two of the top three most popular agencies in our 2023 Riders Choice Awards. Can they make it a hat trick in 2025? Only riders can tell…

As much as we love to celebrate the big wins with agencies and operators, we also want to make sure they hear about the small stuff too. Every day, we’re collaborating with them to raise riders’ voices with Rate-My-Ride and make public transit better with improved ETAs, quarterly rider surveys, and more. Want to join the ride? We’re happy to go together.

Another year, another Riders Choice Awards, another massive congratulations to all the winners and their riders. See you in 2025!

But wait, there’s more:

The ink has just dried on the Fall 2024 edition of our Ridership Happiness Benchmarking survey, which contains the data we use to determine our annual Riders Choice Awards.

Learn more about the program and drop us a line to sign your agency up for custom quarterly reports with the Ridership Happiness Benchmarking survey.