Waiting Conditions and Bus Ridership: Stop-Level Evidence from Boston

Bus stops vary widely in the conditions they provide to waiting passengers, yet ridership analysis rarely considers these differences alongside service performance. This study examines how stop-level amenities relate to bus ridership, conditional on service frequency and schedule deviation. Using bus stop amenity inventories, operational data, and stop-level boarding figures from Boston, USA, we have estimated a structural equation path model for a sample of continuously operated, AVL-equipped timepoint stops. The model uses observed composite scores for physical amenities at the stop level and accounts for headway and schedule deviation. The results indicate that greater provision of basic amenities is consistently linked to higher ridership, and during peak periods both amenity and service reliability measures show stronger associations. Further, spatial clustering analysis shows that poor waiting conditions are geographically concentrated rather than being randomly distributed. Taken together, the findings show how passenger waiting environments and service performance jointly influence ridership and point to opportunities for targeted investment strategies.