While the Port Authority is struggling with finances, the nonprofit Society for the Preservation of the Duquesne Heights Incline is reporting its strongest results in years.

Annual ridership rose 17.2 percent last year, to 387,660, while revenue from fares increased 15.3 percent, to $530,934.

David H. Miller, longtime president of the organization, said in a report he issued this week: "Much effort has been expended lately to make the incline experience more attractive to visitors and to be sure our advertising literature is available to more potential riders. Perhaps it has been worthwhile."

The Duquesne Heights Incline uses a combination of paid and volunteer help to operate the historic vehicle transporting riders between Grandview Avenue in Mount Washington and Carson Street near the Fort Pitt Bridge.

In recent years, the group has improved the upper and lower stations, built a new observation deck for a unique vista of Pittsburgh, added a special viewing area to watch the original, 12-foot-diameter wooden drive gear and other machinery in operation and, most recently, rehabilitated and painted the cars that creep up and down the steep hillside tracks.

Increased ridership also has helped gift shop sales, including the popular snow globe containing a model of the Duquesne Heights Incline. Sale receipts rose from $71,496 in 2005 to $103,401 last year.

The incline receives no direct funding from the county, state or federal governments. It relies on farebox revenues, souvenir sales, donations and memberships, which begin at $10 and are now due for 2007.

The Web site for the Duquesne Heights Incline is www.incline.cc.

The Port Authority operates the nearby Monongahela Incline, also a landmark transportation facility, opposite Station Square. Ridership there increased 1.3 percent last year, from 690,368 to 699,375.