The Mason Corridor MAX Bus Rapid Transit system could see as many as 1.25 million riders in its first year — more than double the ridership figures for the two lines it will replace.

The five-mile project has been in the works since the 1990s and is set to begin service in 2014, with eight buses, each worth $840,000, making stops every half-mile between Harmony Road and the Transit Center downtown.

Kurt Ravenschlag, general manager for Transfort, the transit agency that is building and will oversee MAX, said the ridership formula — called the Travel Demand Model — is used nationwide.

The city was required to use this model in order to qualify for the Federal Transportation Administration grant it received to fund the project. Fort Collins received a $54.5 million grant from the FTA in May, the last piece in the funding for the $87 million project.

As ambitious as the 1.25 million figure might sound, the Demand Model Process determines ridership based on the careful consideration of a number of factors.

The process begins with determining the number of trips taken in an area in a given day. Information from land-use, population and economic forecasts is incorporated to