Now maybe they were the same but I doubt it. If the Metro was maxed out on Saturday 912 and there were less trains running than on Inauguration Day then the analysis will certainly underestimate the 912 crowd. OTOH, it does provide a good lower limit estimate. I think until we know if there were additional trains available on Inauguration Day and that the Metro was maxed out on Saturday 912 we really won't know if my objection is important or not. Hopefully someone can dig up that data.
No question they had made extraordinary preparation for inauguration crowd control and facilitation of large numbers of attendees.
>>the number Metro trains available on Inauguration
>>Day vs. the number available for the 912 Rally
Yep. The authorities completely underestimated the number of folks they expected to show up on 9-12.
Metro ran on a normal Saturday schedule on 9/12. On inauguration day, Metro ran continuous rush hour service from 4am to 9pm. It recorded a ridership of 1.12 million.