New York’s subway trips through 28 October were 2.8% above the same days of 2025, a rise that holds when matching weeks are resampled.
That is 1,082 million trips, against 1,052 million.
In 2025 the subway carried 1.28 billion paid trips, the sum of the MTA’s daily estimates of paid entries, against 1.70 billion in 2019, its last normal year: the last full year before the pandemic.
Measured against each system’s own last normal year, New York has recovered the smallest share of four big metros. London’s Underground has recovered 87% and Tokyo Metro 90%; the Paris Métro has passed its 2019 count.
However, New York’s shortfall isn’t spread across the week. Against the MTA’s comparable days of 2019, its weekend riding in 2025 was 88% and its weekday riding 74%.
Of the trips missing against those days, 91% were weekday trips.
Paris has passed its 2019 riding; New York has three trips in four
New York was furthest behind in 2022 as well, at 60% of 2019, when the other three were all above three-quarters. All four are higher now, in the same order.
New York's subway has won back the smallest share of its last normal year
Administrative Counts from an agency’s own records: the calls, inspections, trips or transactions it logs. They carry no sampling margin, but they count events rather than people, and they can be cut only by what the agency records about each one.Trips in 2022 and in each system's latest year, as a share of its last normal year before the pandemic
The interactive chart needs JavaScript; its numbers are in the table below.
How to read this, and what it cannot show
Each row is a system and each dot a year; the figure at the right is the latest year. Hover or tap a dot for its share.
The numbers behind this chart
About these numbers. Each system against itself, because each counts a trip its own way: New York entries (2019), London's Underground journeys (2018/19, April to March), Paris's métro entries (2019), Tokyo Metro's boardings (fiscal 2018). New York's are paid entries; counting fare evaders it would stand at about four-fifths of 2019.
| Group | 2022 (2022/23 in London, fiscal 2022 in Tokyo) | Latest year |
|---|---|---|
| New York subway (2025 against 2019) | 60% | 76% |
| London Underground (2025/26 against 2018/19) | 77% | 87% |
| Paris Métro (2025 against 2019) | 89% | 101% |
| Tokyo Metro (fiscal 2024 against fiscal 2018) | 78% | 90% |
The first pandemic year cut London deeper. In the year to March 2021 its Underground carried 21% of its last normal year’s journeys, and New York’s subway 25% of 2019’s over the same months.
The MTA counts paid entries; its surveys estimate the unpaid share at about 5% of entries in 2019 and 10% in 2025.
Applying those estimates quarter by quarter puts New York at about 80%, still last.
The Underground’s count leaves out the Elizabeth line: 242 million journeys in the latest year, against 55 million on its forerunner, TfL Rail, before the pandemic.
Added together, the two carried 100% of their pre-pandemic total. That is a broader network than the Underground alone, not a measure of its recovery.
Weekday riding has recovered less than weekend riding
New York's weekend riding has recovered more than its weekday riding
Administrative Counts from an agency’s own records: the calls, inspections, trips or transactions it logs. They carry no sampling margin, but they count events rather than people, and they can be cut only by what the agency records about each one.Average subway trips a day, Monday to Friday and Saturday and Sunday, as a share of the MTA's comparable days of 2019
The interactive chart needs JavaScript; its numbers are in the table below.
How to read this, and what it cannot show
Two lines, each a recovery share from the MTA’s daily file, set against a 2019 rebuilt from its comparable-day percentages rather than the published 2019 total. Hover or tap a point for its share.
The numbers behind this chart
About these numbers. Whole years. The MTA's own comparable pre-pandemic days, recovered from its daily file; paid entries only.
| Group | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saturdays and Sundays | 52% | 67% | 77% | 80% | 88% |
| Monday to Friday (holidays included) | 44% | 59% | 67% | 69% | 74% |
The missing trips are each kind of day’s 2019 level less its 2025 average, times its days: 401 million in all.
The published 2019 total and 2025’s differ by 415 million; the two baselines are built differently.
In January to September 2026, New York’s trips were about 77% of the 2019 months the MTA’s comparable days imply.
London’s and Paris’s files don’t split weekdays from weekends, so this comparison is New York’s alone.
New York’s trips peaked in 2015; the others rose to highs in 2018
The four didn’t enter the pandemic on the same path. New York’s subway trips had peaked in 2015 and were 4% lower by 2019, while the other three reached their highs in their 2018 years.
From 1991 to 2019 New York’s subway trips grew by 83%, and London’s Underground journeys by 84% to its last normal year.
Since 2000 the Underground has grown fastest of the four and the Paris Métro slowest; the table gives each system’s counts.
New York's subway peaked in 2015; the others rose to records before the pandemic
Administrative Counts from an agency’s own records: the calls, inspections, trips or transactions it logs. They carry no sampling margin, but they count events rather than people, and they can be cut only by what the agency records about each one.Trips each year as a share of each system's last normal year before the pandemic (= 100)
The interactive chart needs JavaScript; its numbers are in the table below.
How to read this, and what it cannot show
One line per system, each from its first year in the records. Hover or tap a point for its share.
The numbers behind this chart
About these numbers. New York and Paris by calendar year; London and Tokyo by the year their fiscal year (April to March) starts in. London from 1991/92, Paris from 2000, Tokyo Metro from fiscal 2000; Tokyo's fiscal 2025 is not yet published.
| Group | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York subway | 54.7 | 54.8 | 56.8 | 59.7 | 60.3 | 61.3 | 62.5 | 70.6 | 75.6 | 81.3 | 82.9 | 83.3 | 81.6 | 84.1 | 85.4 | 88.4 | 92.1 | 95.7 | 93.1 | 94.6 | 96.6 | 97.5 | 100.6 | 103.2 | 103.8 | 103.5 | 101.7 | 99.0 | 100.0 | 37.7 | 44.8 | 59.7 | 67.9 | 70.4 | 75.5 |
| London Underground | 54.2 | 52.6 | 53.1 | 55.2 | 56.6 | 55.8 | 60.1 | 62.5 | 66.9 | 70.1 | 68.8 | 68.0 | 68.5 | 70.5 | 70.1 | 73.2 | 77.4 | 78.7 | 76.9 | 80.0 | 84.5 | 88.8 | 91.3 | 94.3 | 97.5 | 99.5 | 98.0 | 100.0 | 96.5 | 21.4 | 54.1 | 76.9 | 85.3 | 88.0 | 87.0 |
| Paris Métro | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 83.3 | 84.3 | 85.7 | 83.3 | 89.2 | 91.7 | 94.1 | 92.6 | 98.3 | 98.7 | 100.5 | 101.8 | 102.9 | 102.0 | 101.9 | 101.5 | 101.4 | 102.7 | 104.1 | 100.0 | 50.3 | 67.8 | 89.4 | 94.2 | 98.5 | 101.1 |
| Tokyo Metro | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 73.7 | 74.1 | 73.7 | 74.9 | 75.0 | 76.0 | 77.9 | 82.2 | 83.8 | 83.2 | 82.9 | 82.1 | 84.7 | 88.6 | 90.1 | 93.4 | 95.4 | 97.9 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 65.2 | 68.4 | 78.2 | 86.0 | 90.0 | – |
Each last normal year is the last full year the pandemic didn’t touch. London’s year to March 2020 lost its final weeks, when journeys ran 50% below the same weeks a year earlier; Tokyo Metro’s fiscal 2019 came within a fraction of a percent of fiscal 2018’s.
Paris’s 2019 ran 4% below its 2018, which makes 2018 the natural check for Paris.
New York is last against either base. London and Tokyo, level against their 2019 years, can swap places.
New York’s subway now carries about as many trips a year as in 1999, for more people: 149 a resident in 2025, against 161 in 1999. Every trip counts, a visitor’s or an outside commuter’s too, against the five boroughs’ residents.
In 2019 it carried 192 trips a resident.
London’s Underground carried 132 journeys per Londoner in its latest year, against 157 before the pandemic.
In the mid-1990s it carried 113.
Paris has passed 2019, London’s Underground hasn’t, Tokyo is close
“Paris’s Métro is back.” Yes, against 2019: the City counts 2025 at 1.1% above it. Line 14’s extension to Orly airport in 2024 is inside the City’s count.
“London’s Tube has recovered.” Not on its own: 87% of its last normal year. With the Elizabeth line its total is level with the year before the pandemic, on a broader network.
“Tokyo’s subways are back.” Not in the latest annual count: Tokyo Metro carried 90% of its fiscal 2018 boardings in fiscal 2024, and Toei, the city’s other subway, 94%. Fiscal 2025 isn’t published yet.
“New York is catching up with London.” Only in this year’s growth. From April to late August New York’s trips rose 2.7% on 2025 while London’s Underground ran 2.8% a day below; New York’s share of its last normal year is still the lower.
The next test is whether weekday riding gains ground
New York stays last under every base year and adjustment tried here.
More months will show whether the weekday shortfall narrows; the next reading is the MTA’s daily count for November. Why weekdays lag needs other records, such as who still goes to the office.
Questions this raises
Why compare each system with itself?
Because each counts a trip differently. New York counts a paid entry at the turnstile; London a journey once however many Tube lines it uses; Paris an entry into the Métro, counting a change in from the RER or a train as a new trip; Tokyo a boarding at a station, leaving out changes between one company’s own lines. All four are close to “a trip into the system”, but not the same trip, so the sizes of the networks are never compared here; only each one’s share of its own past.
How sure are the counts?
They are the operators’ own totals, not samples of passengers, but some rest on estimates. New York’s 2025 is the sum of the MTA’s daily estimates, which came within a tenth of a percent of its published 2024 total; TfL’s published 2024/25 total came before later revisions; and the fare-evasion adjustment rests on the MTA’s surveys.
The range on this year’s rise describes how much the comparison of the two years’ weeks could vary, not the accuracy of each count. Resampling matched weeks puts New York’s rise at 1.5% to 4.0%.
Over London’s five periods this year, New York’s subway averaged 3.63 million trips a day, against 3.54 million in 2025.
London’s Underground averaged 3.24 million journeys a day, against 3.34 million.
Under the hood
New York’s years to 2024 are the MTA’s published totals (New York City Transit’s counts as the NYU Rudin Center tabulated them before 2014); 2025 is the sum of the MTA’s daily estimates. This year compares the same days of 2025 and 2026, with a 90% range from resampling matched weeks, and sets January to September 2026 against the 2019 months implied by the MTA’s comparable-day percentages. Weekdays and weekends are whole years against the MTA’s comparable days of 2019, recovered from its daily file. Fare evaders are added back quarter by quarter with the MTA’s unpaid shares.
London’s years chain the GLA’s table to 2009/10 with TfL’s four-weekly periods from 2010/11 (the two agree in 2010/11); this year compares periods 1 to 5 (to 22 August) per day, and trips per resident use the population of the year each financial year starts in. Paris’s years are the ministry’s to 2024 and the City’s for 2025, whose métro category includes the Montmartre funicular; on the City’s own figures 2025 is also 97% of 2018. Tokyo Metro’s come from each year’s statistical yearbook.
A share of a base year is a ratio of two totals, reported as it is. The published totals the files reproduce are in the box below; the data and the code are linked at the end.
Continue exploring New York
Per subway ride, major felonies fell for thirty years. Felony assault broke from the fall.
In January to May 2026, felony assault per subway entry was about twice its 2019 rate, counting unpaid entries, while the six major felonies together sit close to 2019.
Who still goes to the office
Working from home has settled rather than faded, and it has settled on the better paid.
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Sources
- Metropolitan Transportation Authority — Subway and bus ridership (yearly), daily ridership data and fare-evasion estimates (Yearly totals to 2024; daily estimates 2020 to 28 October 2026 (retrieved 1 November); fare evasion by quarter 2018-2025) — New York's subway trips by year, this year to date, weekdays and weekends against 2019, and the unpaid share of entries
- NYU Rudin Center for Transportation — Subway Ridership 1975-2015 (March 2017) — New York City Transit's yearly subway counts before 2014
- Transport for London — Public transport journeys by type of transport (London Datastore) (Periods from April 2010 to 22 August 2026, retrieved 29 October 2026) — Underground and Elizabeth line journeys by four-weekly period
- Greater London Authority — Travel patterns and trends, London (from TfL's Travel in London report 3) (Financial years 1991/92-2010/11) — Underground journeys before 2010/11
- Transport for London — Quarterly Performance Report, Q4 2024/25 (2024/25) — The published Underground total the files reproduce
- SDES (Ministère de la Transition écologique) — Bilan annuel des transports en 2024, transports de voyageurs (2000-2024, data as of November 2025) — Trips on the RATP Métro by year
- Ville de Paris — Rapport annuel 2025, transports en commun (Published July 2026) — The Métro's 2025 trips (Montmartre funicular included), its comparison with 2019 and line 14's extension to Orly, quoted
- Tokyo Metropolitan Government — Tokyo Statistical Yearbook, subway passengers by station (Every edition from 2000 to 2024 (fiscal years 1996-2024)) — Tokyo Metro's and Toei's boardings by fiscal year
- Population estimates — U.S. Census Bureau and ONS (Nomis) (Retrieved 29 October 2026) — Trips per resident in New York and London
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