On a sweltering August afternoon or in the teeth of a winter storm, New York City subway riders make a quiet calculation: Is the trip worth it?<\/p>\n
A new study published in npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport<\/a> takes a detailed look at how those decisions show up in ridership patterns across the system, and how they vary from station to station.<\/p>\n Researchers from NYU Tandon, the University of Louisville, and the University of Hong Kong analyzed hourly ridership at 10 major subway stations between 2023 and 2025. Using a statistical technique called vine copula modeling, they examined how stations\u2019 ridership moves together under different weather conditions rather than treating each station as an isolated case.<\/p>\n \u201cThink about what actually happens when a storm hits,\u201d said Joseph Chow<\/a>, one of the paper\u2019s authors and an NYU Tandon Institute Associate Professor. \u201cThere is structure in how the riders of a system respond to the storm, almost like a unique \u201csignature\u201d of the system to a type of extreme weather event. Understanding these structures and how they evolve can help different cities better prepare their public transit systems to be resilient against extreme weather events.\u201d<\/p>\n Heavy precipitation has the strongest effect during the evening rush hour. As detailed in the appendix, median declines during heavy rain range from nearly 29 percent at Columbus Circle to less than 8 percent at Grand Central. Outer-borough stations such as Flushing\u2013Main Street also show large declines, approaching 26 percent.<\/p>\n Evening travel is more flexible than morning commutes, so heavy rain tends to shift or suppress trips rather than eliminate them entirely. Riders may leave earlier, wait out the storm, or cancel discretionary plans, leading to sharper drops during that specific peak hour even though most still get home, the researchers explained.<\/p>\n Extreme cold tells a different story. Even during the morning rush, when its effects are strongest, ridership declines are modest, generally between about 1 and 2.4 percent across stations. Larger effects appear off-peak, when discretionary trips are more likely to be canceled.<\/p>\n \u201cCommuters maintain their routines even when temperatures plunge,\u201d Chow said, who is also the Deputy Director of C2SMART<\/a>, Tandon\u2019s transportation research center. \u201cIt\u2019s the discretionary traveler, the person heading to a restaurant or a friend\u2019s apartment, who cancels the transit trip or switches to a different mode.\u201d<\/p>\n The study also highlights sharp differences between nearby stations. Columbus Circle emerges as one of the most weather-sensitive locations during heavy rain, while Grand Central, less than two miles away, shows comparatively small declines.<\/p>\n That variation suggests borough location alone does not determine resilience. Infrastructure, station design, connectivity, and surrounding land use all appear to play a role.<\/p>\n