[PRCo] Re: Riding continues to rise?

[Schneider Fred]

Correct for seasonal changes.   But we're not talking seasonal.    
Summer season ends in August when the children go back to school.

They were comparing exactly what you suggested and that negated the  
change in ridership owning to the decline in oil prices.

On Dec 16, 2008, at 4:45 PM, Joshua Dunfield wrote:

> 2008/12/16 Schneider Fred <fwschneider at comcast.net>:
>> Dallas claims that their riding is continuing to rise even though gas
>> prices are falling.   Is it?   Well, it is if you compare it to the
>> right month in the past.   If you compare November 2008 to November
>> 2007, which was lower, then riding is still going up.
>
> That's a perfectly reasonable way of accounting for seasonal variation
> in ridership.
>
>> But when you compare a sequence of months in a row, ...
>
> Would you compare a sequence of days in a row?  No, because every
> Saturday (and again on Sunday) ridership would collapse, only to
> explode the following Monday.
>
> I think the number you really want is % increase of Nov 2008 over Nov
> 2007 vs. the % increase of Oct 2008 over Oct 2007, etc.  That factors
> out seasonal variation and would give real information about the
> ridership trend.
>
> -j.
>