How International is Human Transit?

While I live in the US now, we’ve always had an international readership, and I’m happy to say that this is more true that ever, as you can see in the table below.  In per-capita readership over the last year, the US ranks fifth, after four other countries that I’ve worked in extensively: Iceland, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia.  (The last two are also countries I’ve lived in.)

New Zealand has led these rankings for years, but Iceland’s population is so small that it wasn’t hard for it to take first place once I started working there last year.

Among developing countries, Malaysia just grazes the top 20 and the highest-ranking is Trinidad and Tobago, though given the small population, that could have been one avid reader checking every post.  Hey, if you read this blog in Trinidad and Tobago, say hi!  I don’t know who you are yet!

Per Capita Readership of Human Transit Blog, year ending 28 March 2016

Annual SessionsPop 1000sSessions/1k pop
Iceland6043331.814
New Zealand67994,6751.454
Canada4679236,0481.298
Australia2842224,0391.182
USA211769323,1370.655
Singapore35595,5350.643
Finland23255,4910.423
Ireland14714,6350.317
UK1948565,0970.299
Israel25068,4760.296
Sweden27599,8580.280
Hong Kong19517,3240.266
Trinidad/Tobago2601,3500.193
Netherlands303517,0010.179
Switzerland11808,3060.142
Belgium157011,3120.139
France608464,5290.094
Germany693481,4590.085
Malaysia237830,9010.077
Spain211246,4230.045

20 Responses to How International is Human Transit?

  1. Mike Boos March 28, 2016 at 9:51 am #

    Question is, are you aiming for coverage or readership with this blog? 😉

  2. Ian March 28, 2016 at 10:39 am #

    I’m glad to see the country of my residence (Finland) is not far from the top either. Now if only they’d put the theory to use…

  3. Antoine Stroh March 28, 2016 at 11:23 am #

    What about the correlation between the readership and the frequency (of the articles) ? #frequencyisfreedom 🙂
    Antoine

  4. Witek March 28, 2016 at 11:27 am #

    Well, how about Poland? Did it rate so poorly it didn’t even make it into the ranking? 🙂

    • Jarrett March 28, 2016 at 12:42 pm #

      Yes, there are lots of countries with smaller numbers. In fact, there’s at least one session from every country, even N Korea.

      • Jarrett March 28, 2016 at 12:43 pm #

        Theory re Eastern Europe: People educated under communism are less likely to be comfortable in English. (?)

        • Witek March 29, 2016 at 4:13 am #

          Well, the main themes of this blog are only now beginning to gain a foothold in Eastern Europe. But of course you’re right, English can still be a barrier, although I don’t think it is a big problem for the younger generations now (people educated under communism are now well over 30)

          Re Korea- I’d rather suspect a travelling fan than a true local

  5. nilko March 28, 2016 at 2:12 pm #

    Trinidad and Tobago? I guess everybody has a country where they wouldn’t expect to be popular, but have a faithful following. Just see David Hasselhoff and Germany.

    Anyway, Hi from one of few of your readers from Serbia.

  6. Onika March 28, 2016 at 3:26 pm #

    Hello from your Trinidad + Tobago reader!

    • Jarrett March 28, 2016 at 3:34 pm #

      Hello, Onika!! I hope we’re useful to you there!

      • Onika March 30, 2016 at 10:56 am #

        Beyond useful. Hopefully we can invite you down here to run a workshop soon.

  7. R. W. Rynerson March 28, 2016 at 8:49 pm #

    I’ve found through Google Analytics on my “Berlin 1969” site that professors or high school teachers can have an influence on the number of readers from smaller markets. I suspect that optional reading lists pick up useful links, such as this site.

    When there is a lone reader in a controlled-internet state. it may be the censor. I used to wonder who the lone reader in Iran on my site was, until I remembered that I had posted an essay explaining the link between our demand for oil and terrorism back when that was not so widely understood. Iran was mentioned.

  8. S M Sabri Ismail March 28, 2016 at 11:42 pm #

    Mmm … Did your logged statistics include readers via RSS https://humantransit.org/feed ? There at least 170+ readers using RSS readers to read your post via that feed. I am one of them and I don’t miss a single post here since I set that feed on my Feedly reader.

    There used to be a lot more feedly readers of you feed from before Nov 2015. However, you lost quite a number of feedly readers when you change your RSS feed URL moving onto WordPress blogging platform. Unfortunately you didn’t send out a post to the old RSS feed URL telling old readers of the move.

    • Kenny Easwaran April 12, 2016 at 5:50 am #

      I had wondered for a month or two why there weren’t any new posts in my feed, and then I checked the site and saw that there had been over a dozen, and found out I needed to update my subscription. I wonder if there’s a way to send a post to the old subscription telling people of the new one.

  9. Swiss guy March 30, 2016 at 6:03 am #

    besides the places you’ve worked in, I’d wager there is a strong correlation with ability to read English when it comes to the other countries, and probably interest in public transportation too because that’s a lot of clicks from Singapore and Hong Kong.

  10. mike March 30, 2016 at 9:21 am #

    All the best from London (not the Canadian one) where the frequency is freedom mantra is fully embraced – for the moment. And it has certainly transformed public transit usage here both on the tube and the bus system. Can’t say the same for the rest of the UK sadly.

    • Chris March 30, 2016 at 11:00 am #

      The tube and bus has always been very frequent by most standards; it’s the heavy rail network (particularly Overground) that seems to me to have benefitted most from a move towards a concentration on regular predictable services. It’ll be interesting to see in the future just how many such frequent services can be fitted onto London’s existing suburban rail network, which certainly seems like a network that could benefit from the kind of approach Jarrett advocates. I’m now Manchester based, a city where the absurd effects of 1980s bus privatisation still prevent the development of a sensible bus network designed around frequency or integration. In a few years time we should be allowed to operate a London style franchised system, so hopefully then we won’t have to look to London’s system with such envy.

      As an international reader I’d just like to thank you for this blog Jarrett. While you aren’t usually talking about contexts like the one I live in, the way you make your case from fundamental principles makes them interesting and relevant despite that. I’ve learned a lot over the years!

      • Mike March 30, 2016 at 1:45 pm #

        Chris, we are very lucky in London although our operating grant is being removed entirely in 2018. They never learn. Nobody could claim the operating investment in the tube which we self-funded from the mid 1990’s onwards and the bus improvements in the early 2000’s funded by government grant have not been a huge success. Two examples. In the mid 1980’s the Bakerloo Sunday service was every 10 minutes – now it is every 3-4 minutes. The bus route from Whitechapel to Bow was every 15 minutes in the mid 1990’s from 8pm until midnight and is now every 4 minutes. Crucially the frequency improvements kick started the ridership growth such that London Transport now accounts for over half of all bus and train journeys in the UK. We (and I say we because I worked for LT for many years) led demand rather than followed it to the point where we grew usage to a hopefully self sustaining level. But it wasn’t always so. Latent demand is out there and I really hope it can be sparked by similar investment in Manchester and elsewhere. I also hope that Jarrett continues to make these points and get the message out there. Good luck !

  11. el_slapper March 31, 2016 at 12:57 am #

    I made some advertisement for some of your posts(especially the one with the photo that says all) to my french-speaking friends, without a lot of success. Though my fishing zones are far from dedicated to transit, so it’s probably why I didn’t have a lot of success.

    Myself was pointed here from the simutrans forum, a much better place to advertise transit.

    http://www.simutrans.com/en/
    http://forum.simutrans.com

  12. senex April 5, 2016 at 4:25 am #

    Greetings from Cambridge (the real one, not the Massachussets copy)! An extremely wealthy place with an antiquated transport system which is legally forbidden improving.