MTA Bus Co. ridership increased by over 11 percent in 2007, according to figures released today by the agency.

Crain’s has the story:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority Bus Co. on Wednesday reported that ridership on its 81 routes grew an average of 11.1% during the 10-months ending December 2007, as compared to the previous period.

MTA Bus operates a network of 46 local routes in Brooklyn and 35 express routes in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Yonkers. Those routes carried an average of 367,000 riders each weekday for the 10 months ended in December, an increase of 9.7% compared with the same period in 2006. Increases were even more pronounced on weekends — Saturday ridership rose 15.1% to 196,300 and Sunday ridership increased 13% to 138,900.

“Thanks to a number of initiatives we’ve undertaken, MTA Bus is now the fastest-growing segment of the MTA network,” MTA Bus President Thomas Savage said in a statement.

Savage attributes the jump to improved scheduling reliability, maintaining or replacing older buses, "100 percent wheelchair accessibility," and route revisions — changes instituted since the MTA Bus Co. was created in 2004, when the MTA absorbed seven private companies franchised by the city.

MTA Bus Co. ridership accounts for approximately 10 percent of MTA bus users as a whole.