We present a method of predicting the distribution of passenger throughput across stations
and lines of a city rapid transit system by calculating the normalized betweenness centrality
of the nodes (stations) and edges of the rail network. The method is evaluated by correlating
the distribution of betweenness centrality against throughput distribution which is calculated
using actual passenger ridership data. Our ticketing data is from the rail transport system of
Singapore that comprises more than 14 million journeys over a span of one week. We demonstrate
that removal of outliers representing about 10% of the stations produces a statistically
significant correlation above 0.7. Interestingly, these outliers coincide with stations that opened
six months before the time the ridership data was collected, hinting that travel routines along
these stations have not yet settled to its equilibrium. The correlation is improved significantly
when the data points are split according to their separate lines, illustrating differences in the
intrinsic characteristics of each line. The simple procedure established here shows that static
network analysis of the structure of a transport network can allow transport planners to predict
with sufficient accuracy the passenger ridership, without requiring dynamic and complex
simulation methods.