natronics.org/src/posts/septa_budget_2021.md

---
title: 2021 SEPTA Budget Breakdown
layout: post.liquid
published_date: 2022-07-18 00:00:00 +0000
slug: septa_budget
is_draft: false
description: |
  Philadelphia's transit agency SEPTA 2021 Budget numbers turned into a Sankey visualization.
---

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# 2021 SEPTA Budget Breakdown

_Published in July 2022_

<p class="illuminated">
  Every year Philadelphia's transit agency <span style="font-variant:small-caps;">septa</span>{% capture sidenote %}SouthEastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.{% endcapture %}{% include "sidenote.liquid" %}
  publishes budget figures.{% capture sidenote %}The reports page with many PDFs for download including the 2021 budget: <a href="https://planning.septa.org/reports/">https://planning.septa.org/reports/</a> (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220615033618/https://planning.septa.org/reports/">archived link</a>).{% endcapture %}{% include "sidenote.liquid" %}
  There is a lot of information in the document, both a high level table and many further breakdowns.
</p>

I thought it would be interesting to read through the numbers and build a
Sankey diagram{% capture sidenote %}<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankey_diagram">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankey_diagram</a>{% endcapture %}{% include "sidenote.liquid" %}
showing several levels of expenses and revenue broken down by category.

Starting at the highest level this is the top level budget for the entire organization:

### 2021 Budget Breakdown 

 Revenue                          | Amount in Thousands
 :------------------------------- | ------------------:
 Passenger Revenue                |   480,574
 Shared Ride Program              |    16,250
 Other Income                     |    42,188
 Investment Income                |     2,756
 &nbsp;                           | ---------
 *Total Operating Revenue*        |   541,768

 Subsidy                          | &nbsp;
 :------------------------------- | ------------------:
 Federal                          |    93,028
 State                            |   779,377
 Local                            |   112,451
 Other                            |     4,360
 &nbsp;                           | ---------
 *Total Subsidy*                  |   989,216

 Expenses                         | &nbsp;
 :------------------------------- | ------------------:
 Labor and Fringe Benefits        | 1,088,773
 Material and Services            |   331,432
 Injury and Damage Claims         |    24,711
 Propulsion Power                 |    27,313
 Fuel                             |    26,026
 Vehicle and Facility Rentals     |     8,854
 &nbsp;                           | ---------
 *Operating Expense*              | 1,507,109
 Depreciation/Contributed Capital |    23,875
 &nbsp;                           | ---------
 **Total Expenses**               | **1,530,984**


Note that the subsidies (mostly from the state of Pennsylvania) exactly cover
the gap between expenses and revenue.

I found the high level table a little lacking in detail, so I read further and
tried to pull out numbers from the various breakdown tables in the document
and align them to the overview table so we can see more detail of where money
is coming from and where it's spent.

Here is a visualization of the budget as a Sankey diagram:

<figure class="fullwidth">
  <a href="interactive/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration:none;background:none;text-shadow:none">
    <img src="SEPTA_2021_Budget_sankey.png" alt="Sankey diagram breaking down SEPTA 2021 Budget numbers by various catagories" title="Sankey diagram breaking down SEPTA 2021 Budget numbers by various catagories">
  </a>
</figure>

 - Click the image for a larger interactive view.
 - Download the chart as an image [SEPTA_2021_Budget_sankey.png](SEPTA_2021_Budget_sankey.png)

This represents my best-guess understanding at the data as-is from the PDF.