THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS This PDF is available at http://nap.edu/23642 SHARE Contracting Commuter Rail Services DETAILS 29 pages | 8.5 x 11 | PAPERBACK ISBN 978-0-309-44959-5 | DOI 10.17226/23642 AUTHORS BUY THIS BOOK Texas A&M Transportation Institute, ESH Consult, James Stoetzel, and Shelly Brown Associates, LLC.; Transit Cooperative Research Program; Transportation Research Board; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine FIND RELATED TITLES Visit the National Academies Press at NAP.edu and login or register to get: – Access to free PDF downloads of thousands of scientific reports – 10% off the price of print titles – Email or social media notifications of new titles related to your interests – Special offers and discounts Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the National Academies Press. (Request Permission) Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Contracting Commuter Rail Services August 2016 TRANSIT COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM Sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration Responsible Senior Program Officer: Gwen Chisholm-Smith Research Results Digest 112 CONTRACTING COMMUTER RAIL SERVICES This digest presents the results of TCRP Project G-14, “Contracting Commuter Rail Services.” The research was conducted by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute in association with ESH Consult; James Stoetzel; and Shelly Brown Associates, LLC. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION commuter rail industry in North America today has grown to 31 systems serving Commuter rail service commonly refers to passenger trains operated to carry riders 25 metropolitan areas in North America, living in suburban areas to and from work in including two new systems in 2016. Addi- city centers. Commuter rail often uses track tional commuter rail projects in Colorado shared with freight rail operations or track and California are in development. This that was sold by a freight operator and may expansion and evolution of commuter rail now be owned by the public transportation has led to a wide variety of strategies and provider with an arrangement that allows approaches for managing the operation and for joint use by freight, intercity passenger, maintenance of these services. Although CONTENTS and commuter trains. Commuter rail has some commuter rail agencies operate and Chapter 1 Introduction, 1 been part of the development and evolution maintain the rail service directly, most agen- Objective, 1 cies contract for all or part of operating and Organization, 2 of the rail mode in the United States since the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) began maintenance services. The contracts may Chapter 2 Overview, 2 Identification of Commuter Rail operation in 1834. be with (1) the host freight railroad, (2) the Systems, 2 National Railroad Passenger Corporation History of Commuter Rail in the Up through the late 1950s, commuter United States and Canada, 3 rail services were owned, operated, and paid (Amtrak) in the United States or VIA Rail Scale of Operations, 10 for by the privately owned freight railroads. in Canada, or (3) an independent contractor. Chapter 3 Regulatory Environment for Commuter In the early 1960s, the private railroads Rail in the United States, 11 reduced passenger operations drastically FRA, 11 Objective FTA, 13 or eliminated the services all together. STB, 15 In a few cities, public agencies began to TCRP Project G-14, “Contracting Com- Related Topics, 15 offer financial assistance to the railroads, muter Rail Services,” was designed to pro- Chapter 4 Regulatory Environment for Commuter either as direct operating grants or as pur- vide guidance to public agencies and other Rail in Canada, 21 chase of service agreements. These early key stakeholders in contracting commuter Overview, 21 Regulatory Framework, 21 agreements often lacked any sort of per- rail services. Currently, there are no guide- Safety Regulation, 22 formance standards or requirements. The lines or generally recognized best practices Chapter 5 Contracting agreements called for the railroad to keep to consider in determining how to provide Commuter Rail, 22 Agency-Operated Services, 23 operating the service and for the public a city or a metropolitan region with com- Bundled Contracted Services, 23 muter rail service (by direct operation and/or Unbundled Contracted Services, 25 agency to pay an agreed-upon amount for Mixed-Agency-Operated and the operation. by contract). The digest resulting from Proj- Contracted Services, 25 Profiles for Commuter Rail Over the past 40 years, how commuter ect G-14 presents potential approaches, Systems, 25 rail services are provided in the United States an evaluation of the approaches, and guid- References, 26 and Canada has changed considerably. The ance on how and when to apply different Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Contracting Commuter Rail Services approaches to existing and new services; documents Identification of Commuter Rail Systems current commuter rail practices and gaps in knowl- As late as the early 1980s, only a handful of edge; and provides an overview of the commuter rail U.S. cities were served by commuter rail. These systems operating in the United States and Canada. included Boston, New York City/Connecticut, New York City/New Jersey, Philadelphia, Balti- Organization more, Chicago, and San Francisco. Canada had This digest has five chapters as follows: such services in two cities: Montreal, dating back several decades, and Toronto since 1964. These • Chapter 1 is the introduction and presents the commuter rail systems are grouped together as the digest organization. legacy systems. Table 1 shows the 12 legacy sys- • Chapter 2 provides information on the history tems operating commuter rail service in the United and current status of commuter rail in North States and Canada. America. Three generations of commuter railroad sys- • Chapters 3 and 4 provide a review of the regu- tems have been classified as New Starts: the first latory environment for commuter rail in the generation from 1989–1999, the second generation United States and Canada, respectively. since 2000–2014, and the third generation in 2016. • Chapter 5 discusses how each commuter rail Two new commuter rail projects have been planned agency approaches contracting for services. to open in 2016. Denver Regional Transit District A set of profiles for each of 31 commuter rail sys- (RTD) is scheduled to open commuter rail on three tems in the United States and Canada is available lines in 2016 (and plans a fourth line for 2018). The online at http://tti.tamu.edu/group/transit-mobility/ Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) District ?p=1379 plans to implement a passenger rail and bicycle- pedestrian pathway project in Marin and Sonoma Counties in Northern California. The project will CHAPTER 2 OVERVIEW serve a 70-mile corridor along the historic North- This chapter provides (1) an overview of the com- western Pacific Railroad alignment, with the first muter rail systems operating in the United States and 43 miles planned to open in late 2016. Table 2 Canada and (2) a recent history of the evolution of shows the 19 commuter rail systems that are New commuter rail service in the United States and Canada. Starts. Table 1 Legacy Commuter Rail Systems in the United States and Canada System Service Area Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation (PATH), Port Authority NYC and NJ of New York and New Jersey Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Boston, MA LIRR, New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (NY-MTA) NYC – Long Island, NY Metro-North Commuter Railroad Company (Metro-North), NY-MTA NYC – North and East NY New Jersey Transit Rail Operations (NJ TRANSIT) NJ – NYC Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, Regional Rail Philadelphia, PA Division (SEPTA) MARC Train Service (MARC), Maryland Transit Administration Martinsburg, WV; Frederick, MD; Perryville, MD; Baltimore, MD – Washington, DC Metra – Metropolitan Rail Corporation, Regional Transportation Chicago, IL Authority (RTA) South Shore Line, Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation South Bend, IN – Chicago, IL District (NICTD) Caltrain, Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (PCJPB) San Francisco – San Jose – Gilroy, CA GO Transit, Greater Toronto Metropolitan Authority (Metrolinx) Toronto, Ontario, Canada Agence métropolitaine de transport (AMT) Montreal, Quebec, Canada 2 Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Contracting Commuter Rail Services Table 2 New Start Commuter Rail Systems in the United States and Canada System: New Starts 1989–1999 Service Area Tri-Rail, South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA) Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade Counties, FL Shore Line East (SLE), Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) New Haven – New London, CT Metrolink, Southern California Regional Rail Authority (SCRRA) Los Angeles, CA Virginia Railway Express (VRE) Northern Virginia – Washington, DC COASTER, North County Transit District (NCTD) San Diego County, CA West Coast Express (WCE), South Coast British Columbia Transportation Vancouver, BC, Canada Authority (TransLink) Trinity Railway Express (TRE) Dallas – Ft Worth, TX Altamont Corridor Express (ACE), San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission Stockton – San Jose, CA (SJRRC) System: New Starts 2000–2014 Service Area Sounder, Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority (Sound