World Cup boosts MARTA ridership by 1.7 million trips

MARTA said it would be ready for the FIFA World Cup, and it was.

That was the triumphant declaration interim General Manager and CEO Jonathan Hunt made Thursday, a day after the last of eight Atlanta matches ended with Argentina’s win over England.

Hunt gave MARTA’s Board of Directors an update on the transit agency’s successes over the past six weeks: More frequent service on 16 match and Fan Fest days; no major service breakdowns or safety incidents; and about 27% higher ridership than usual.

Hunt said the transit agency “raised the bar for what our patrons expect from MARTA.”

“When the euphoria dies and the crowd is silenced, the unspoken question is whether MARTA can continue delivering safe, clean and reliable service in this manner,” Hunt said. “And I know our answer is going to be a resounding yes.”

At the tournament’s halfway mark, MARTA reported FIFA events had generated more than half a million extra rail trips, with double or more trips on some match days. That trend continued through Wednesday, with 1.7 million extra trips credited to fans attending World Cup events.

Since the tournament started June 11, total rail ridership is estimated at 4.8 million, about 2 million more trips than average in that time period.

The final Atlanta match Wednesday was one of the bigger ridership days of the tournament, with 220,000 trips tallied, up from 93,488 on a typical weekday. Only two match days were higher, June 24 (Morocco vs. Haiti) and July 1 (England vs. Congo).

The ridership figures are estimates. The ongoing fare gate installation means not every station has gates where riders can tap in or out. To calculate ridership, Marta is counting taps where they’re installed and scaling up to systemwide totals using historical ridership patterns on comparable event days.

All those extra trips were largely uneventful. There were no major safety issues or service disruptions.

The biggest disruption was late in the evening June 27 after the match between Uzbekistan and Congo. A train shut down on the tracks because of a mechanical issue, and 575 passengers were stuck for about an hour until they could be offloaded to another train.

Other than that, there were just three instances where MARTA had to pull in buses to provide service because of rail disruptions, including on June 13 when a man was struck by a train at Civic Center. The transit agency had extra buses at the ready for such incidents.

There were also no major safety incidents.