Database: Uncovering 27,000 bus complaints against Miami-Dade County Transit

Public Transit

What's wrong with Miami-Dade's bus routes?

By Chris Alcantara, Kara Dapena, Bakr Saliq and Douglas Hanks calcantara@miamiherald.com Published: Nov. 5, 2015

More than 200,000 people ride a bus in Miami-Dade every day, making it the busiest arm of the county’s mass-transit system. However, not all passengers enjoy the ride. Many have voiced their concerns to the county by submitting complaints to the transit department. The Miami Herald requested 19 months' worth of feedback from the county — from January 2014 to July 2015 — to see what frustrates bus riders. The Herald divided the 27,818 feedback submissions into complaints and compliments and then separated the 26,632 complaints into the 11 categories below.

Schedule issues frequent and widespread

Below is a breakdown of the feedback for more than 90 of the county’s active routes. The map shows the county’s 32 busiest routes, which account for 75 percent of rides and 60 percent of feedback. Buses not arriving on schedule motivated most passenger submissions and easily qualified as the No. 1 category for complaints. Hover or tap on the routes for more details.

Countywide complaints

Schedule

12,384 12,384

Driver Conduct

4,014

No Stop

3,801

Safety

1,851

Miscellaneous

1,516

Bus Stop Issues

1,428

Cleanliness

577

Capacity

511

Maintenance

320

Fares

169

Passenger Conduct

Countywide compliments

Praise

1,187

Color map by:

Complaints per 100,000 rides

Less

This route had rides and recieved complaints per 100,000 rides.

Browse active routes

All 91 of Miami-Dade’s active bus routes are listed below. The Herald assigned each route an overall rider rating score. The number of stars – one being the worst and three being the best – represents each route’s complaints minus praise per 100,000 rides during the 19-month period compared with other routes countywide.

Select a route to see all the complaints and compliments it has received.

Methodology

To determine a bus route’s overall score, the Herald separated all responses into compliments and complaints per 100,000 rides. It then took the difference between those values and compared it with the rest of the county’s active routes. Routes with rates that fell above the county’s top 66th percentile received 3-star ratings. Those in the bottom 33rd received 1-star ratings.

The Herald used the same star-rating scale to score responses by category. It calculated each route’s rate in each category and compared those with the rest of the county’s routes respectively. Routes with fewer than 100,000 rides were not scored due to a high margin of error.

Miami Herald writers Alex Harris, Chabeli Herrera, Elizabeth Koh, Debora Lima and Nicholas Nehamas contributed to this report.