Public transit riders in the Chicago area spend about a half-hour a day waiting for their trains and buses to arrive. And although it is perhaps the most frustrating part of the commute, it beats the average in other major U.S. cities, according to a survey released Tuesday.
Transit commuters here spend on average almost two hours a day on public transportation, and about one-fourth of that time involves waiting for a bus or train, according to the survey by Moovit, a public transit app that combines travel data collected from transit providers with information received from transit customers.
The average 31-minute wait among riders on the CTA, Metra and Pace is less than the roughly 40-minute daily national average, which results in an annual total of 150 hours wasted while waiting for rides.
Widespread use of the CTA's Bus Tracker and Train Tracker, which predict when buses and trains will arrive at stops, may help account for the relatively shorter wait times for transit in Chicago than in some other cities that do not provide the tracking technology to customers.
Moovit conducted the survey last month, using transit system rider data from 13,000 respondents in 22 cities in North America, South America, Europe and Australia. It included five U.S. cities: Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Boston and San Francisco.
Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro tied for longest average wait in the world, at 41 minutes. In LA, that represented 31 percent of total daily commuting time.
Among other U.S. cities, Boston was next, with a wait of 39 minutes, or 34 percent of total daily commuting time; New York, 38 minutes, or 26 percent of commuting time; San Francisco, 36 minutes, or 35 percent of commuting time; and Chicago, 31 minutes, or 27 percent of commuting time, the survey reported.
Transit commuters in the U.S. spend an average of 105 minutes per day on public transit, according to the survey. New York had the longest commute time in the world, at 149 minutes daily. Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Toronto came in next, with 138-minute average commutes.
Commuters in Barcelona, Spain, and Milan spend the shortest average amount of time per day on public transit, at 63 and 74 minutes, respectively, as well as waiting for trains and buses, with wait times of 18 and 19 minutes, respectively, the survey said.
In the five major U.S. cities surveyed, 31 percent of commuters said they were dissatisfied with the quality of public transit. The primary frustration mentioned was uncertainty about when a bus or train would arrive.
Moovit was launched in Chicago about six months ago and has about 70,000 app users, said Alex Torres, the company's vice president of global marketing. Moovit has more than 10 million downloads in about 400 cities worldwide, the Israel-based company said.
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