Riders and fares, as the record states them

2010–2025 · THE AGENCY'S OWN NUMBERS

The riders: The ridership record that can be stated first-hand begins with the agency's own officers. In August 2016 Transpo's general manager told the Common Council that the corporation provides over two million fixed-route rides per year, and 60,000 trips per year on the Access paratransit service, with about 120 employees and a fleet of sixty vehicles. The state's figures, published in the Indiana Department of Transportation's annual transit reports, run lower for the same year and fall steadily, and both are carried here as the record gives them: INDOT's system ridership series for South Bend reads 1,748,661 in 2016, 1,640,018 in 2017, 1,630,249 in 2018 and 1,594,252 in 2019, before the pandemic year cut it to 937,474 in 2020 — a decline the South Bend Tribune was already examining in February 2018, under the headline "Fewer riders but not fewer tax dollars." The recovery the federal record states is partial: the American Public Transportation Association's ridership reporting gives Transpo 1,279,200 riders in 2025, about 4,500 per weekday in the fourth quarter of that year — roughly four-fifths of the 2019 figure. The 2020 state profile fixes the system's scale in the pandemic year whole: 66 revenue vehicles with 52 required at peak, 937,474 passenger boardings over 1,548,696 vehicle miles, operating expenses of $11,881,503 — $10,316,002 of it fixed route and $1,565,501 demand response — against fare revenue of $833,333, with an $8.5 million federal CARES Act grant in the year's record and a mobile ticketing pilot launched with Token Transit.

The fares: The documented fare points are these. Transpo's base fare is one dollar, and the agency's fare record dates its most recent increase to 5 April 2010 — the dollar fare has therefore stood through the whole period this entry covers. The state profile of 2020 prints the structure whole: base fare $1.00, transfers free, elderly and disabled $0.50, youth free; a 31-day pass $35 and a 15-day pass $18; senior passes $12 and $6, student passes $18 and $9. The Access paratransit fare stood at two dollars in the general manager's 2016 account to the council. Around the fare sit the pass arrangements the record documents: students, faculty and staff of the University of Notre Dame, Saint Mary's College and Holy Cross College ride free on presentation of a valid identification; Ivy Tech students have ridden since January 2012 on a student identification with a validation sticker; and from 6 August 2018 Indiana University South Bend's students, faculty and staff ride free under the university's arrangement with the corporation. For the streetcar era, the fare schedule of the Northern Indiana's city lines is not fixed in the record reached for this section — the nickel world of the jitney fight is documented in the ordinance case above, but no South Bend city fare table of the railway's own survives in the sources consulted, and none is asserted here.

Sources:

1. City of South Bend, Public Works and Property Vacation Committee minutes, 8 August 2016 — the general manager's figures: over two million fixed-route rides a year, 60,000 Access trips, about 120 employees, sixty vehicles, the $1.00 fixed-route fare and $2.00 Access fare, the $10.8 million 2016 budget and its fare share.
2. Indiana Department of Transportation, Indiana Public Transit Annual Report, calendar year 2020 — the South Bend ridership series 2016–2020; the agency profile (66 revenue vehicles, 52 at peak, expenses and revenues, the CARES Act grant, the Token Transit pilot); the fare structure table.
3. The South Bend Tribune, 18 February 2018, as cited in the compiled record — "Fewer riders but not fewer tax dollars: Can Transpo find more customers?"
4. American Public Transportation Association, Transit Ridership Report, fourth quarter 2025 — Transpo's 1,279,200 riders in 2025 and about 4,500 per weekday.
5. Transpo's published fares, as compiled in the transit record — the $1.00 base fare and the most recent increase of 5 April 2010; the university free-ride arrangements; Indiana University South Bend's announcement of free riding from 6 August 2018.