Las Vegas Monorail ridership continued to slip in the fall months, with passenger totals in November hitting its lowest point in nine months, according to statistics released Tuesday.

Last month, only 25,788 people rode the monorail each day, continuing a ridership tumble that began after the transit line carried almost 33,000 people daily in July.

The November total is the lowest daily average since 23,033 people took the rail line each day in February.

The slump had been forecast by monorail officials, who believe a seasonal tourist slowdown in the late fall and winter months is shrinking the pool of potential riders.

"As anticipated, the monorail's daily average ridership and revenue numbers in November were slightly lower than October," when a daily average of 28,280 people used the system, Las Vegas Monorail Co. president and CEO Curtis Myles said in a prepared statement. "We projected that the first two weeks of November would be strong and that the last two weeks would drop off slightly, so we're on target with our internal projections."

There was a brief rebound last week, when the monorail averaged around 30,000 daily riders during the National Finals Rodeo, Myles said.

The monorail suffered a similar winter slump at the start of 2005. Ridership totals barely topped 20,000 daily riders in January and February before jumping to over 30,000 riders in March.

Around the time the system first opened to the public in mid-2004, monorail officials hoped the rail line would average 50,000 daily riders by now, a target that managers now believe is unrealistic.

November's low ridership meant the monorail brought in only $75,859 in daily farebox revenues. That's enough to cover the monorail's operating costs of $57,000 per day, but well short of covering additional debts of $82,000 per day to pay off bonds used to finance construction of the $650 million line.

Cash reserves are now being used to pay the difference. Monorail officials hope to use sponsorship deals to help close that gap. Earlier this month, Myles said General Motors had agreed in principle to such a deal, the details of which are pending.

A source with GM, the world's largest automaker, said the deal would involve naming rights to the Sahara Hotel station and possibly theming rights to a train for at least six months.

At base advertising rates, that deal could bring in more than $8,000 per day. Other existing ad deals are believed to be bringing in somewhere around $20,000 per day, according to an analyst's figures.

One area where the monorail is beginning to meet expectations is in its reliability.

After spending much of 2004 sidelined because of mechanical problems -- including three instances of metal parts falling from moving elevated trains -- the monorail has been sidelined by technical glitches for part or all of only four days this year through Monday.