The Public Transportation Fact Book, published annually, contains national aggregate statistical data covering all aspects of the transit industry in the United States and Canada.

Major sections include an overview of U.S. transit facts, transit finances and operating statistics by modes of travel; transit vehicle characteristics and deliveries; facts and numbers relating to federal grants and the Federal Transit Act; and statistical trends of Canadian transit operations.

Two appendices are also available, providing additional in-depth information that supplements the data in the Fact Book.

Appendix A presents select data items for the entire time period reported in the Fact Book and other statistical reports prepared by APTA and its predecessor organisations. Many data items are reported for every year beginning in the 1920s, and ridership is reported from 1907.

Appendix B presents six operating statistics for 2009 for each transit agency in size order, totalled for all service modes operated by the agency and in size order for each individual mode. Data are also summed and ranked for urbanised areas, both all modes totalled and for individual modes. These lists allow a simple method to determine comparably sized transit agencies.