An old-fashioned bus could be sucking riders away from the high-tech Las Vegas Monorail, which carried far fewer riders but made about as much money last month as in March 2005, according to monorail data released Thursday.

Citizens Area Transit's "The Deuce" double-decker bus service, which launched on the Strip earlier this year, is believed to have played a role in the monorail drawing just 21,204 daily passengers last month. That's well short of the 32,324 people who took trains every day in March 2005.

"We're estimating a few thousand (people) who would have ridden the monorail if 'The Deuce' was not in existence," said Ingrid Reisman, a monorail spokeswoman, adding that she could not quantify a specific number.

But at Thursday's Regional Transportation Commission meeting, commission general manager Jacob Snow roughly pegged the ridership leakage from the train to "The Deuce" at 5,000 to 6,000 riders per day.

Reisman said the second-story view of the Strip the buses offer was a likely lure for some tourists.

A Jan. 1 one-way monorail fare increase to $5 from $3 is credited with helping farebox revenues hit $94,665 last month -- just $588 less than in the same month last year -- and with pushing away some potential riders who didn't want to pay the higher fee.

"We knew we were going to be down over March of last year because of the fare increase," Reisman said.

Further hurting turnstile counts was the loss of the CONEXPO-CON/AGG convention. That construction trade show brought more than 124,000 people to the Las Vegas Convention Center last March, but it is not scheduled to return until 2008.

"One of the big factors was one of the largest conventions in town is not in town. Those folks used the system heavily," Reisman said.

Nonetheless, Reisman was pleased that last month's ridership improved from January and February, when the system posted its two lowest ridership totals, failing to top 19,000 daily riders either month.

"What this is showing us is there's still demand for the system," Reisman said. "As we continue to promote the existence of the Las Vegas Monorail, ridership will continue to increase."

Monorail surveys show that roughly six of every 10 riders use the monorail because they did so on a previous trip to the valley, according to Reisman.

"We have a huge upside in increasing our ridership," Reisman said. "That tells is we still have huge opportunities that we're going to continue to work towards."

The $650 million privately financed monorail has not turned a profit since opening in mid-2004. It has seen its bond rating fall into "junk" status as a result, though deep cash reserves have kept the monorail from defaulting on its debts.

Reisman hopes several marketing initiatives will soon start to show ridership results.

Those include the opening of manned ticket booths, where locals can buy discounted passes from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily; the distribution of monorail tickets via some Sprint/Nextel cell phones and online at www.vegas.com; and the opening of "The Drive," a General Motors auto park and test course at the monorail's Sahara Hotel station.

"I believe we're making huge strides in increasing the awareness" of the monorail, Reisman said. "Seeing results in ridership, I think it's going to take a couple of months."