Key West Transit Development Plan FY2025-2034

3.1 Existing Transit Services Overview

Monthly tourism data was sourced from the Key West International Airport, Monroe County Tax Records, City of Key West Port Operations and the City of Key West Historic Seaport/Marinas was used for this analysis to provide a correlation coefficient of Key West Transit ridership and tourism rates. The dataset captures pre-pandemic statistics, the decline and subsequent recovery from 2019 to 2022. Only partial datasets are available for 2023 related to tourism and therefore this analysis captures monthly and year-over-year comparisons for 2019 – 2022 for consistency. Specific data on seasonal residents in Key West from 2019 to 2024 is not available, as most available statistics focus on overall population, tourism, and housing trends. The following methodology was used to analyze the relationship between KWT ridership and the influence of tourism: Data Collection & Preparation Multiple datasets were compiled including, KWT monthly ridership counts for all Key West Transit services with the following tourism Indicators: » Airport Passenger Arrivals: Monthly counts of passengers arriving at Key West International Airport. » Cruise Ship Passenger Arrivals: Monthly counts of passengers arriving via cruise ships. » Ferry Passenger Counts: Monthly passenger counts from ferry services. » Hotel Occupancy Rates: Monthly average hotel occupancy percentages in Key West, representing seasonal and tourist demand.

Before performing the analysis, the datasets were cleaned to remove inconsistencies. All datasets were standardized to ensure they followed the same time period (monthly data from 2019 to 2022). Annual total figures were excluded to focus solely on monthly trends. The Columns for months and metrics were standardized to match across all datasets. Data Analysis To quantitatively assess the relationship between KWT ridership and the various tourism factors, the following correlations were plotted to generate a visual comparison of monthly KWT ridership trends with each tourism factor. This allowed for a preliminary observation of trends over time. Figures 3-4—3-9 on the following pages depict the trends for each of the following: » Monthly Ridership of All KWT Services: The primary dependent variable, capturing all transit usage. » Airport Passenger Arrivals: Proxy for air-travel-related tourism. » Cruise Ship Passenger Arrivals: Proxy for sea-based tourism, with a heavy influence on Key West's economy. » Ferry Passenger Counts: Passenger counts from local ferry services. » Hotel Occupancy Rates: Reflecting demand from tourists and seasonal residents

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Transit Development Plan FY 2025–2034