Urban Transit Systems Industry Profile

Companies in this industry operate buses, trains, and other local and suburban passenger transit systems within cities and adjacent nonurban areas. Major companies include Beijing Subway, East Japan Railway (Tokyo), Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York), Mexico City Metro, Moscow Metro, MTR Corporation (Hong Kong), Paris Metro, and Seoul Metro.

As of 2023, the region with the highest ridership was Latin America with about 21 million passengers per day, followed by Asia-Pacific and Europe, according to Statista. For railway transit, Japan has the highest passenger-kilometers traveled by train with more than 446 billion passenger-kilometers traveled by train in 2019.

The US urban transit system industry includes about 800 establishments (single-location companies and units of multi-location companies) with combined annual revenue of about $5 billion. Government agencies in the US that provide urban transit are discussed in this profile, but they are not included in the revenue and company figures. In addition to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, leading US providers include Chicago's Regional Transportation Authority, LA Metro, Transdev North America, and Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Demand is driven by population and employment growth in metropolitan areas. The profitability of individual companies depends on efficient operations. The US industry is highly concentrated: the 50 largest companies generate about 90% of the industry's revenue.

The rising popularity of ride-sharing services coincides with declining ridership on public transportation in the US, suggesting that companies such ...