This package distributes demand data from the São Paulo metro system inside R. The data covers 2012 to 2026 and comes from several operators. Most of it is already public, but it is scattered across poorly structured CSV and PDF files.
METRÔ publishes lines 1, 2, 3, 15, and line 5 through July 2018 on its open data portal. Line 4, and line 5 from August 2018 onward, come from the Insper Dataverse.
All datasets are tibble objects bundled with the
package, so they load without a download. The data is cleaned and
standardized to make it easier to work with.
The package covers every metro line in São Paulo. Commuter train (CPTM) demand is not included, though train lines and stations do appear in the spatial datasets.
| Line | Name | Operator | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Azul (Blue) | METRÔ | Jan 2016 – Jul 2026 |
| 2 | Verde (Green) | METRÔ | Jan 2016 – Jul 2026 |
| 3 | Vermelha (Red) | METRÔ | Jan 2016 – Jul 2026 |
| 4 | Amarela (Yellow) | ViaQuatro | Jan 2012 – Mar 2026 |
| 5 | Lilás (Lilac) | METRÔ / ViaMobilidade | Jan 2016 – Apr 2026 |
| 15 | Prata (Silver) | METRÔ | Jan 2016 – Jul 2026 |
Coverage refers to passengers_entrance, which is missing
July 2017 for every METRO-sourced line. The other datasets start later
for some lines. The data dictionary vignette gives the coverage window
of every dataset by line.
Currently, the best option is to install the package from R-Universe which is more up to date.
install.packages('metrosp', repos = c('https://viniciusoike.r-universe.dev', 'https://cloud.r-project.org'))The package is also available on CRAN.
install.packages("metrosp")Four datasets carry the demand data:
passengers_entrance, passengers_transported,
station_averages, and station_daily. The rest
are auxiliary tables that support analysis and visualization.
| Dataset | Description | Frequency | Spatial |
|---|---|---|---|
passengers_entrance |
Monthly passenger entries by line and day-type metric | Monthly | No |
passengers_transported |
Monthly passengers transported by line, in thousands | Monthly | No |
station_averages |
Average weekday passenger entries by station | Monthly | No |
station_daily |
Daily passenger entries by station | Daily | No |
station_inauguration |
Station opening dates and ramp-up window flag | — | No |
calendar_spo |
São Paulo holiday and business-day calendar | Daily | No |
metro_colors |
Named vector of official metro line colors | — | No |
lines |
Metro and train line routes (current + planned) | — | Yes |
stations |
Metro and train station locations (current + planned) | — | Yes |
passengers_entrance and the two station datasets count
individual passengers. passengers_transported reports
thousands of passengers, as the METRÔ source does. For more details on
the data, see the data
dictionary.
The bundled data is a fixed snapshot, current through July 2026. It
is regenerated when the column schema changes, not when new months are
published, so examples and analyses stay reproducible across package
versions. METRÔ publishes on an irregular schedule and revises past
years, so these numbers drift from the source over time. Freshly rebuilt
data is published on every pipeline run to the data-latest
release.
The data is bundled with the package, meaning it works out of the box and doesn’t rely on internet connection. To use a dataset simply call its name.
library(metrosp)
# To work with spatial datasets (lines, stations)
library(sf)
# For better tables load dplyr or tibble
library(dplyr)
# Passenger entries by line
passengers_entrance
# Station-level weekday averages
station_averages
# Spatial line routes
linesAn interactive dashboard for browsing and downloading these datasets lives in a separate repository: metrosp-explorer.
This package is still in development. While the datasets are stable and checked on every new release, there may still be errors. If you find any, please open an issue.