Public Ridership data faq's

This portal provides open ridership metrics for San Francisco Bay Ferry so riders, researchers, and partner agencies can understand how service is performing over time.

Ridership is published on a regular schedule after internal quality checks are complete. New data may appear after reporting and validation are finalized.

A boarding is one passenger getting on a vessel. If a rider takes two one-way trips in a day, that counts as two boardings.

The fields in the dataset are as follows:
ColumnTypeExampleDescription
DateDate (YYYY-MM-DD)2026-01-02The service date that the ridership data applies to. Each row summarizes activity for one route on one calendar day.
Day of WeekTextMondayThe actual day of the week for the service date. This does not reflect the type of service operated (such as a holiday with weekend service).
RouteTextVallejoThe route for the ferry service shown in the row.
Trips OperatedInteger100The number of one-way trips that were actually operated on that route on that date.
BoardingsInteger1794The total number of passenger boardings recorded on that route on that date. A boarding represents one passenger getting on a vessel.
Bike BoardingsInteger49The total number of bicycles and scooters brought on board by passengers on that route on that date. A bike boarding represents one bike or scooter getting on a vessel.
Passenger MilesInteger50236The total passenger miles traveled on that route on that date. This is calculated as the sum of the distance traveled by all passengers.

Beyond the 6 core routes of the SF Bay Ferry system that operate on a regular schedule (Oakland & Alameda, Vallejo, Harbor Bay, Richmond, Alameda Seaplane, South San Francisco), SF Bay Ferry also operates various special event, temporary pilot, or short hop routes. You can find detailed route and schedule information about all the services SF Bay Ferry currently operates here. The following table lists defunct routes since January 1, 2018 that may appear in the data:

Route NameDate StartedDate EndedDescription
San Francisco Pier 41 Short Hop October 12, 2025Service between Downtown San Francisco and Pier 41.
Ballpark Short Hop June 16, 2024Service between Downtown San Francisco and Oracle Park.
Ballpark (Redwood City)July 28, 2024September 16, 2024Pilot game day special event service between Redwood City and Pier 48.
Ballpark (Richmond)May 4, 2025September 14, 2025Pilot game day special event service between Richmond and Pier 48.
Oyster Point LimitedOctober 23, 2023December 29, 2023Temporary weekday midday pilot service between South San Francisco and Pier 48.

Values can be revised to correct data quality issues, incorporate late records, or reflect route and schedule adjustments identified during review.

Compare similar periods and account for seasonality, holidays, special events, weather, and service changes, which can all affect ridership totals.

No. The dataset is aggregated and does not publish rider-level personal information.

Yes. The portal is intended for public use. We recommend citing San Francisco Bay Ferry as the source and including the date the data was downloaded.

All data is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). It allows broad reuse, including commercial use, as long as users provide attribution to San Francisco Bay Ferry.

Annual survey data results are available on our publications page. Monthly on-time and reliability performance are available in monthly Board packets.