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Anderson

Engineer
Joined
Nov 16, 2010
Messages
10,410
Location
Virginia
I seem to be unable to upload an Excel document (I can add images or text documents, but not spreadsheets, it seems), but I have an updated version of my Ridership/Revenue file. It now has 20 [!] years of ridership data. If I could get a hand uploading the document here, I would appreciate it.

BTW, I noticed an oddity - does anybody know what "Great River Service" would be? It's listed in the latest MPR between Empire Service and CHI-STL, but there's no revenue or ridership.

[Also, I'd note that the Hoosier State continues as a line item with negative revenue. No, I have no idea what that could mean at this point. I've zeroed it out for my purposes because there's no ridership to attach it to.]
 
Also, I'd note that the Hoosier State continues as a line item with negative revenue. No, I have no idea what that could mean at this point. I've zeroed it out for my purposes because there's no ridership to attach it to.]
Perhaps there are continued expenses from the contract with the private company that ran the train?
 
I've attached that. Please bear in mind that the data set is now 20 years of ridership, revenue, and analysis (FY03-FY22)
 

Attachments

  • Revenue Per Passenger (_'03-_'22).pdf
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So, broadly speaking, here's my analysis of what's happened for FY22 vs FY19 (since FY20/FY21 were grossly impacted by the pandemic); I'll try to analyze FY22 vs FY17 (since there's a gap in comparable data) in terms of revenue, etc. later.

FY22 vs FY19
There are a number of routes that are mostly "back to normal" (or close to it - there are still lingering impacts in the numbers, and I'd need to compare summer 2019 to summer 2022 for a better "feel" here). These are generally the "non-commuter" routes - the commuter-ish trains (e.g. the Keystone) seem to be off. Overall, the shorter corridor operations (i.e. state-supported trains) have taken a 33.82% hit to ridership (a loss of about 5.2m). Trains that I would call "commuter heavy" would include:
-NYP-ALB: -16.06%
-NHV-SPG: -10.52%
-Keystones: -48.83%
-Hiawatha: -43.11%
-Pacific Surfliner: -41.14%
-Capitol Corridor: -62.07%
-San Joaquin: -33.73%

NYP-ALB and NHV-SPG took less of a hit than the others - I think NHV-SPG was helped out by the Valley Flyer extension as well as the ramp-up of the Hartford Line service. The other routes have been slammed. The extent to which this is a result of service cuts driving a fall in ridership vs changing commuter patterns is still TBD. That being said, well over half of the short-haul ridership are on four routes (the CA three plus the Keystones make up almost 3.5m of the 5.2m loss).

IINM the other routes taking major hits have suffered frequency cuts (or, in the case of the Cascades, haven't been operating to all of their old destinations - the resumption of Vancouver, BC service is likely going to make a non-trivial difference even if it is only one trip for now).

Virginia is a goofy case - there have been several service expansions in the last few months (in particular), but the trend has also been generally positive on a month-over-month basis (I believe the ridership rate is above FY19's levels before the expansions hit). Looking at the three "eastern" routes (Richmond, Newport News, and Norfolk), ridership is "only" down about 50k while Lynchburg-now-Roanoke is up by about 10k. My best guess is that these are going to slingshot up substantially for FY23 - Lynchburg/Roanoke should jump by 50-100k: The last three months (Jul/Aug/Sep) yielded 36.7% of FY22's ridership (84.3k out of 230k). I'm trying to guess a good extrapolation, but just tripling those three months' ridership would put the route over 250k. My guess is that the total will be closer to 300k (a 3.5x multiplier would produce 295k). Eastern VA is trickier to predict (the impact of the new Norfolk trains probably won't be as dramatic as the impact of the new Roanoke service), but it should at least match pre-pandemic numbers, and probably gain a bit on them. A major note: VA has been "buying" ridership with low fares, but this will probably back off a bit if ridership continues to rise (as there are only but so many seats to sell).

I'd note that there appears to be some distortion in a few cases due to trains on a shared route not all starting up at the same time - I think that Albany-Toronto and the Ethan Allen may have been "helped" by the Adirondack not operating (since that would force some business over to one or two stops) and the mess that the LSL has been (alongside, well, the rest of the LD system), while the Carolinian is likely helped by the erratic operation of the Florida Service trains and some of the reductions that were in place in Virginia.

Over in LD-land, 13 of the 15 routes are down. The outliers are the Silver Star (as the Silver Meteor was suspended, forcing all non-Auto Train ridership over to it) and the Auto Train (likely helped by the Silver Service antics to some extent). Both have set ridership records for my record-keeping (I cannot in any way guess what the ridership looked like on the Star back when it was splitting at Orlando and had more sleepers, etc., but this looks like a 30-year high for both). Having said that, there's a major loss of ridership on these trains (not surprising given the loss of intermediate stops at various times). The loss is tricky to mark off:
-For the Star/Meteor (conventional FL service) it's about 230k.
-For the Star/Meteor/Palmetto ("Silver Service") it's about 295k.
-For the Star/Meteor/Auto Train (all FL service) it's about 185k.

It is anybody's guess where these numbers will go next year.

The other routes took hits mostly in line with their frequency cuts, though the Sunset Limited and Cardinal also took hits in line with the "nearby" LD trains (the Cardinal is also likely adversely affected by some Charlottesville business flipping to the new Roanoke Regional).

Finally, in the NEC, the Acela has been beaten up more than the Regionals - they went from just under 30% of NEC traffic (and about 50% of revenue) to about 23% of traffic (and 37% of revenue). As above, we'll see what starts to play out over the next few months.

In general, I think the trends are mostly pointed in a good direction...but it's probably going to be another year or so before we're fully "back to normal" in some respects, and some of the commuter-y trains might never quite go back to where they were because of a loss of commuters.
 
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