Redesigned RTAMS site provides user-friendly access to transit data

January 29, 2021

A redesigned Regional Transportation Authority Mapping and Statistics (RTAMS) website is now available for users to explore, search, and study data from the Chicago region’s transit network. 

The website, maintained by the RTA, first launched in 2002 as a home for data about the CTA, Metra, and Pace. The updated site that launched in January 2021 is a faster, mobile friendly, and interactive approach to transparency.  

Highlights of the new site include: 

• A Digital Document Library with hundreds of historical reports and documents related to the Chicago transit system that have been scanned, digitized, and tagged for the first time.  
• Dozens of datasets that can be searched, downloaded, and filtered to allow users to search more easily for specific data.  
• Ridership statistics for every route and station on the region’s transit network searchable by month and type of day.
• Jurisdictional search of data such as services, ridership, transit projects, or capital spending by county, municipality, Chicago ward, or other jurisdiction within the region. For example, a search for “North Riverside” shows the number of CTA, Metra, or Pace routes and stations in that community along with links to station and route profile pages and ridership details over time. Users will also find information about RTA planning projects and transit capital projects in the community. 
• Detailed information on all routes, stations, and lines on the region’s transit network, including maps, links to schedules, ridership statistics, and more. 
• The Data Transparency Portal that includes expenditures, contracts, and employee information for the RTA, CTA, Metra, and Pace. The portal also includes safety data from the National Transit Database. 
• Interactive maps including a detailed, searchable map of the entire region’s transit network, a map of more than 200 RTA Community Planning projects around the region, places where the RTA has installed interagency signage to help users navigate the transit system, Transit Signal Priority corridors, regional demographics, and more. 
• Downloadable data from the COVID-19 Transit Dashboard including ridership, farebox revenue, and sales tax revenue compared to pre-pandemic levels. 

Because the new RTAMS site is updated and managed by RTA staff, it is more efficient and cost effective to maintain. The site will continue to be updated as data from CTA, Metra, and Pace becomes available. 

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