The Future of Commuter Rail in North America (2025) / Chapter Skim
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7 Implementation Strategies
Pages 54-63

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From page 54...
... How do commuter rail services fit into the regional mobility goals of advancing economic opportunity, travel needs, and sustainability? • Travel markets.
From page 55...
... Developing specific strategies for the future of commuter rail involves an Figure 22.   Strategic model for North American commuter rail providers.
From page 56...
... In doing so, transit planners and leaders need to be prepared to answer tough questions about commuter rail service changes, fare policy, and insti tutional governance to tackle the transportation goals established in each region. Understanding the goals and the current travel market for commuter rail services across the United States will be the foundation for charting an effective future.
From page 57...
... In a 2024 survey of MARC riders, the agency found that most current and potential riders desired more off-peak and weekend service than anything else from the provider. 7.2 Altering Service to Address the Travel Market Based on the market analysis, commuter rail providers can tailor their service to better attract riders.
From page 58...
... Nevertheless, in all cases, the flexibility of the funding, along with its magnitude, pro vided the opportunity to test new service patterns and try fare promotions. Interviewees with staff at commuter rail providers cited this opportunity as an area of recent success.
From page 59...
... While providers offered fare promotions on their services, relatively little progress was made on the regional coordination of fares. Most of the region interviewees have different fare structures and media for their commuter rail lines than the local buses or trains.
From page 60...
... Cost Management Expanded service and simpler fares are great ways to attract commuter rail riders, but they can be expensive to operate. Commuter rail providers can look for ways to increase the efficiency of their own operations.
From page 61...
... This is a large advantage and can lead any coordination on capacity management approaches. Interviewees for this research project mentioned the following obstacles to changing their operating patterns: • Restrictive trackage rights or purchase-of-service agreements can limit the hours of commuter rail operation or restrict them to pre-negotiated slots, • Rail corridors at or near capacity would require expensive infrastructure to increase capacity, • Unpredictable rail services operated by the host railroad can make regular commuter rail time tables difficult to operate, and • Lack of understanding of the actual supply and demands on host railroads creates a dynamic in which they expend large sums for trackage rights and capital improvements with host rail roads to allow more passenger service on the shared line.123 Agreements with host railroads can prevent commuter rail providers from quickly implementing additional or modified service in response to market demand.
From page 62...
... The infra structure owner uses an iterative process, so when a region evaluates its travel markets, assesses its operations, then plans its capacity, it uses these inputs to revisit the market analysis to see whether the additional capacity consumption is worth serving the market it intends to address. North American commuter rail providers rethinking their service timetables are starting to employ similar approaches.
From page 63...
... Related to the land use research, more information is needed to better understand how modern travel markets access commuter rail stations in urban and suburban areas. Data uncovering current and desired access patterns for automobile, public transit connections, walking, and biking could help commuter rail providers better plan their stations and the surrounding land use.


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