Definition of "ridership"

Virgin Trains East Coast failed because ridership and revenue did not increase as predicted in its bid. It still rose, but not enough to satisfy the deal it had made with DfT. The result was that Stagecoach and Virgin lost a lot of money.

2019 October 23, Philip Haigh, “Railway reorganisation offers no guarantee of a panacea”, in Rail, page 57

But the picture is grim in many more cities. On the Paris Métro, ridership was just over half of normal in the first two months of this year.

2021 March 25, Somini Sengupta, Geneva Abdul, Manuela Andreoni, Veronica Penney, “Riders Are Abandoning Buses and Trains. That’s a Problem for Climate Change.”, in The New York Times‎