Statistics – Inaccurate, incorrect or … ?

A few weeks back, I read somewhere that the transit system in Metro Vancouver (formerly the Greater Vancouver Regional District) moved somewhere around 25 million people. I don’t recall if it had a time-frame associated (e.g. 25 million people per month), but it seemed to me as though it didn’t and thus is quite open to interpretation.

I have been mulling over and thinking about this for a while now… the way in which we report numbers and statistics. If the population of Vancouver is now around 2 million people and, of those only a percentage (whatever that is, let’s say 30%) take transit, in reality, only 600,000 people would take transit. So, to say that a transportation system mobilizes 25 million people is inaccurate, because the city doesn’t even have 25 million people! (now, if somebody told me that was the case with Mexico City, I would probably believe it a bit more).

I am guessing the 25 million refers to number of trips per month(e.g. about 40 bus trips per person per month times 600,000 people, to give a number). I would prefer to read this figure rather than hear that the system moves 24 million people a month, when there aren’t 24 million people in Vancouver.

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