I catch the B-Line into uni around 8am, right in the peak. On a Tuesday or Wednesday it's packed. On a Friday it's noticeably quieter, which made me curious how many people are actually going into work. So I pulled every day of Opal tap data since January 2020.
First I checked whether it was just my bus. It wasn't. Across Sydney, outside the big centres, bus tap-ons between 7 and 9am on a Friday used to be about 6% below midweek. Now they're about 20% below.
In the CBD, midweek travel is most of the way back. Fridays came back too, then stalled, and they've been stuck at the same level for four years.
Fridays fell behind in 2022 and haven't caught up
For each month I took evening tap-ons in the CBD on Fridays and Mondays and compared them with that month's Tuesday-to-Thursday average. Before COVID a Friday ran about 10% quieter than midweek. Since mid-2022 it's been about 22% quieter, and the return-to-office push didn't shift it.
Show as table
| Month | Friday | Monday |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-01 | 84% | 102% |
| 2020-02 | 92% | 97% |
| 2020-03 | 90% | 101% |
| 2020-04 | 98% | 98% |
| 2020-05 | 91% | 94% |
| 2020-06 | 96% | 100% |
| 2020-07 | 94% | 96% |
| 2020-08 | 90% | 93% |
| 2020-09 | 90% | 95% |
| 2020-10 | 88% | 92% |
| 2020-11 | 91% | 95% |
| 2020-12 | 86% | 91% |
| 2021-01 | 90% | 85% |
| 2021-02 | 85% | 93% |
| 2021-03 | 85% | 92% |
| 2021-04 | 80% | 92% |
| 2021-05 | 82% | 93% |
| 2021-06 | 88% | 80% |
| 2021-07 | 94% | 94% |
| 2021-08 | 97% | 97% |
| 2021-09 | 96% | 98% |
| 2021-10 | 90% | 109% |
| 2021-11 | 87% | 97% |
| 2021-12 | 92% | 108% |
| 2022-01 | 91% | 111% |
| 2022-02 | 93% | 106% |
| 2022-03 | 85% | 96% |
| 2022-04 | 72% | 90% |
| 2022-05 | 74% | 88% |
| 2022-06 | 84% | 90% |
| 2022-07 | 82% | 89% |
| 2022-08 | 83% | 90% |
| 2022-09 | 76% | 87% |
| 2022-10 | 81% | 88% |
| 2022-11 | 80% | 88% |
| 2022-12 | 76% | 89% |
| 2023-01 | 79% | 94% |
| 2023-02 | 79% | 91% |
| 2023-03 | 78% | 87% |
| 2023-04 | 80% | 86% |
| 2023-05 | 79% | 88% |
| 2023-06 | 79% | 89% |
| 2023-07 | 77% | 87% |
| 2023-08 | 79% | 86% |
| 2023-09 | 77% | 88% |
| 2023-10 | 80% | 89% |
| 2023-11 | 79% | 89% |
| 2023-12 | 79% | 95% |
| 2024-01 | 78% | 92% |
| 2024-02 | 76% | 89% |
| 2024-03 | 79% | 89% |
| 2024-04 | 74% | 93% |
| 2024-05 | 77% | 89% |
| 2024-06 | 77% | 91% |
| 2024-07 | 78% | 89% |
| 2024-08 | 79% | 88% |
| 2024-09 | 79% | 89% |
| 2024-10 | 80% | 90% |
| 2024-11 | 79% | 91% |
| 2024-12 | 80% | 92% |
| 2025-01 | 77% | 99% |
| 2025-02 | 80% | 89% |
| 2025-03 | 76% | 90% |
| 2025-04 | 84% | 95% |
| 2025-05 | 77% | 93% |
| 2025-06 | 78% | 92% |
| 2025-07 | 79% | 92% |
| 2025-08 | 80% | 89% |
| 2025-09 | 79% | 93% |
| 2025-10 | 80% | 91% |
| 2025-11 | 76% | 92% |
| 2025-12 | 74% | 79% |
| 2026-01 | 74% | 91% |
| 2026-02 | 76% | 92% |
| 2026-03 | 77% | 92% |
| 2026-04 | 80% | 94% |
| 2026-05 | 79% | 92% |
| 2026-06 | 78% | 92% |
| 2026-07 | 78% | 92% |
| 2026-08 | 80% | 90% |
| 2026-09 | 78% | 91% |
It's the office districts
Then I split it by centre, and the gap lines up with how much of each area is office work. North Sydney, the CBD and Macquarie Park lost the most of their Friday. Chatswood and Strathfield, which are more about shopping and where people live, have barely any gap at all.
Show as table
| Centre | Pre-COVID | Last 12 months |
|---|---|---|
| North Sydney | 93% | 73% |
| Macquarie Park | 92% | 76% |
| Sydney CBD | 91% | 78% |
| Parramatta | 92% | 80% |
| Chatswood | 100% | 97% |
| Strathfield | 100% | 99% |
What's missing is the Friday 5pm rush
Hour by hour, Friday's 5pm peak out of the CBD was always a bit lighter, about 15% below midweek. Now it's about 32% below. If you're not in the city on a Friday, you're not tapping on to go home. Friday lunchtime is as busy as any other day though.
How I measured it
The data is TfNSW's Opal Tap Data: tap-ons and tap-offs by hour, mode and commercial centre for every day since January 2020, rounded to the nearest 100. I used evening tap-ons (3pm to 7pm), which is people leaving a centre. I left tap-offs out because they have breaks I couldn't explain. CBD morning tap-offs drop about 85% between October 2023 and June 2024 while tap-ons stay flat.
Comparing Friday against Tuesday to Thursday of the same period cancels out most changes in how the data is collected. I dropped public holidays, lockdown starts and outages automatically (any weekday under 70% of its usual level), plus the periods TfNSW flags as unreliable. One thing I'm still not sure about is whether the new Metro stations count towards the CBD. If they don't, the midweek recovery number is probably on the low side.