Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Post COVID Ridership Recovery is Slowing

 


US Transit Ridership has been steadily recovering since the 2020 pandemic, but in 2024 the rate of reovery has definately slowed. 

Metro ridership for the first 10 months of 2024 is up only 2% compared with same period in 2023

Commuter Rail is up 5%
Light Rail up 6%
Streetcars up 7%
Urban Bus up 7%

Click Here for More Details


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Friday, January 6, 2023

Post-COVID Ridership Recovery Update: Empirical Data


The "Work from Home Movement", and other effects from the Spring 2020 outbreak, are still evident in US transit ridership patterns.   As of September 2022, overall ridership was roughly 2/3 of September 2019.   

Nationwide, local bus services are back to 70% patronage from 3 years earlier.   Compared with local bus services, all other modes have recovered a larger fraction of their ridership since the Spring of 2020 but are all carrying a smaller proportion of their 2019 ridership.  

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Thursday, December 29, 2022

The Marriage of Automated Metros and Self-Driving Trains


Automated Metro Operations: 
Opportunities, Challenges and Conversions

As we emerge from the pandemic and embrace the "new normal", urban transportation faces a number of new challenges and opportunities related to efficiency, economy, technology and changing travel behaviors.

As we adapt and upgrade our cities, one proven technological opportunity to reduce the costs of providing high capacity transit systems while also dramatically improving service quality can be considered.  The coordination of existing, but underutilized, unattended metro train operations and the emerging prospect of self-driving trains offer the opportunity improve service while reducing operating costs.

The presentation on January 9th will cover the proliferation of unattended train systems around the world, the conversion of legacy systems to unattended operation and the emerging opportunity to apply self-driving car autonomous technology to the rapid transit environment.  

I hope you can attend. 

If not, CLICK HERE for a copy of the presentation.  

102nd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board
Committee on Rail Rolling Stock and Motive Power
Monday, January 9, 2023, 15:45 – 17:30 ET
Capitol Room (M4) Marriott Marquis Hotel Washington DC

David O. Nelson, Senior Consultant, 
Jacobs Engineering, 120 Saint James Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02110
david.nelson@jacobs.com  +1 978 360 0449





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Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Announcing the Annual Meeting of the Commuter Rail Subcommittee

2023 Annual Meeting of TRB's Commuter Rail Subcommittee

Tuesday, January 10, 2023. 15:45 - 17:30
Mint Room (M4), Marriott Marquis Hotel,
Washington DC. 

All are Welcome!  
Be prepared to discuss how the commuter railroad you know best is responding to the new "Work from Home" travel market. 

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Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Concerning the Post-2020 Commuter Railway

The public health crisis of 2020 and beyond had dramatic effects on our society and culture.
Some aspects of our collective culture will be changed forever.  One public service that may never be the same is the commuter railways that have carried office workers from their suburban homes to their downtown workplaces for more than century.  

Responding to the social distancing imperatives required by public health concerns, office workers and their employers exploited the latest commerically available tools for telecommunication to establish a new mode of "Working From Home".  WFH turned out to be big success that will likely endure long after the other painful memories of the pandemic eventually fade.  

Work from Home will likely change urban travel forever with dramatic effects on peak demand for commuter rail transit service to the urban core.   Click here for more thoughts on this transformative change.  


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Monday, January 25, 2021

Innovative Service Planning Approaches for Urban Rail Transit Systems

 I’ll be presiding over an online poster session at the 100th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board on Thursday, Jan 28: 2:30 PM  - 4:00 PM (Session 1402)

 Poster Presentations will cover a myriad of topics:

 Service Optimization of Urban Rail Transit Line with Short-turn and Express/ Local Services

Tao Feng, Qiyuan Peng, Dian Wang, Siyu Tao of Southwest Jiaotong University

 

Assessing the Bus Bridging Effectiveness on the Operational Resilience of the Subway Service in Toronto

Alaa Itani andAmer Shalaby of University of Toronto

 

Research on Critical Stations Identification for Operation of Urban Rail Transit Network

Jinyi Chen and Tiezhu Li of Southeast University and Yong Li and Wei Zheng of Nanjing Subway Operation Co.LTD

 

Ridership and human mobility of metro system under the typhoon weather event: A case study in Fuzhou, China

Yuchen Lin, Shixiong Jiang, Dewang Chen, of Fuzhou University

 

Multi-Objective Optimization for Skip-Stop Strategy Based on Smartcard Data Considering Total Travel Time and Equity

Sang-Wook Han, Eun Hak Lee, Dong-Kyu Kim of Seoul National University

 

A Method to Minimize Transfer Waiting Time on Urban Rail Trip Considering Rail Stopping Time Extension

Jumei Zhu, Xiucheng Guo, Junlan Chen, and Shuang Li of Southeast University

 

Network Design and Line Planning on Multi-modal Rail Transit Network Within Metropolitan Area

Xinmei Chen, Qiyuan Peng, and Siyu Tao of Southwest Jiaotong University

Virginie Lurkin, Technische Universiteit, Eindhoven

 

Stop-skipping Strategy Based on Stop-to-stop Dependent Demand in Urban Subway Lines

Mohammadjavad Javadinasr, Amir Bahador Parsa, and Abolfazl Mohammadian of University of Illinois, Chicago.   Yousef Shafahi, Sharif University of Technology

 

Skip-stop Train Service Stop Scheme In Urban Rail Transit Based On Passengers' Reverse Transfer

Sijia Zhang, Jiannan Mao, Yuting Chen, Hao Huang, and Lan Liu of Southwest Jiaotong University

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Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Towards the Autonomous LRV

This Friday January 15, 2021 at 10:00 am EST  I'll be presenting the preliminary findings of research on the state of the industry and prospects for self-driving autonomous light rail vehicles.

You can join the presentation online at the 100th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board: Standing Committee on Urban Rail Transit Systems


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Monday, December 21, 2020

1st Virtual Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board

 The TRB 100th Annual Meeting will be conducted as a virtual event over a series of dates throughout January 2021


The decision to go virtual was made out of concern for the health and safety of all meeting attendees, in light of the  coronavirus disease (COVID-19). 

The Commuter Rail Subcommittee Meeting will be held Thursday January 14, 2021 | 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm (EST) 

For more details on the Commuter Rail Subcommittee meeting:  CLICK HERE

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Monday, May 11, 2020

CNAM Conférences Ferroviaires Américain - 2020 SYLLABUS

The FEA127 seminar will meet ONLINE five times during the period 

13 May 2020 to 25 May 2020

Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers
MS TEAMS 
61 Rue du Landy | 93210 SAINT DENIS France

Anticipated topics with links to the notes and readings are listed below: 

1. Wednesday 13 May 2020 1400
Introduction to US Freight and Passenger Railroading
Click here for reading
Click Here for Recent Rail Freight Trends
Clink Here for US Rail Freight and the COVID Virus

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Saturday, December 29, 2018

The US Commuter Rail Renaissance: A 30 Year Progress Report


David O. Nelson, Jacobs Engineering Group, Boston Massachusetts
Kay O’Neil, Keolis Commuter Service, Boston, Massachusetts
To be presented at the 98th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board
January 14, 2019 | 8:00 am | Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington DC

 In 1989 the first new US commuter railroad in living memory opened for business in South Florida running over a 41-mile route between Miami and Boca Raton. “Tri-Rail” quickly expanded to result in a 71-mile-long service that spanned three counties.  Tri-Rail soon had a long string of imitators among other

 Sun Belt and western cities wrestling with highway congestion and a paucity of affordable fixed guideway transit options. New commuter rail services were started in other cities with no previous history of commuter rail service. Thirty years later commuter rail service is now offered in 14 new US jurisdictions. Most had no previous experience with commuter service.

The number of US commuter railroads has more than doubled in the last 30 years and the legacy systems have enjoyed a 50% growth in ridership.  This paper reviews this remarkable success story, tracing the “New Start” commuter rail phenomena while also reporting how the nine “Legacy” systems that were operating in 1988 have fared over the last 30 years. The paper uses the most recently published (2016) federally collected data to compare the New Start services with the older, and generally larger, legacy systems.

1987 also marked the US’ first competitively procured commuter rail service in Boston, soon followed by Miami in 1988. Today, 14 US commuter railroads are operated under the auspices of a competitively tendered procurement.  Eleven other railroads are “owner-operated” either by employees of the public agency sponsoring the service or by the private owner (freight railway) of the subject railway under the auspices of a negotiated service contract.  This paper considers how this management innovation has worked out by comparing the economic performance of the “competitive contract” services with the “owner-operators”.

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Thursday, November 29, 2018

CNAM Conférences Ferroviaires Américain - 2019 SYLLABUS

The FEA127 seminar will meet ten times during the period 
Thursday 9 May 2019 through Thursday 23 May 2019

Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers
61 Rue du Landy | 93210 SAINT DENIS France

Anticipated topics with links to the notes and readings are listed below: 

1. Thursday 9 May 2019 0815
Introduction to US Freight and Passenger Railroading
Click here for reading

2. Thursday 9 May 2019 1330
Introduction to US Freight and Passenger Railroading   Continued
Click here for reading

3. Friday 10 May 2019 1330
Click here for reading on capacity
Click here for reading on terminals

4. Monday 13 May 2019 1330
Intermodal Freight and Containers
Click here for reading

 US Freight and Supply Chains
Click here for reading

5. Tuesday 14 May 2018 0815
Transport Efficiency:  OPTO and UTO
Click here for OPTO reading
Click here for UTO reading

6. Wednesday 15 May 2019 0815
Transportation and Climate Change
Click here for reading

Sustainable Transport Networks
Click here for reading

7. Monday 20 May 2019 1330
Transit Service Reliability, Scheduling for Connections and Travel Demand
Click here for reading on reliability
Click here for reading secondary reading on reliability
Click here for scheduling
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Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Bringing the nation’s oldest and most heavily used light rail network into the 21st Century



Boston’s Green Line with 66 stations, 22 track miles, 205 cars and four branches carrying nearly 250,000 passengers each weekday is the busiest and among the oldest light rail systems in the nation.  Much of the network has been in place since the 1800’s originally opening as early as 1856 with horse drawn trolleys. Portions of the downtown tunnel network are the oldest subway in this hemisphere.  The Green Line can be proud of its long and distinguished history but most of its surface stations reflect a bygone era and do not fully meet expectations for a modern transit service. 

On April 21, 2017 at the National Planning Conference of the American Planning Conference, Jacobs
Engineering and the Institute for Human Centered Design, will be presenting the methods and findings from their 2016 project to develop conceptual designs for 26 stations that had gone decades without upgrade or significant rehabilitation.  The new stations would meet all modern codes related to accessibility, emergency egress, passenger comfort and convenience while minimizing the costs for required upgrades and impacts on adjacent transportation services (roadways, parking, sidewalks and bike lanes) that share right of way with light rail network.

The presentation will review the principal challenges and solutions developed to upgrade the stations with the least cost and impact to adjacent transport services.  Key considerations included:
·         Comprehensive Design Criteria: Accessibility regulations, building codes and railway design standards needed to be integrated and reconciled;
·         Evaluation of Existing Conditions: Where the service runs in a median reservation, the reservation was generally too narrow to provide passenger platforms of sufficient width. Some stations are on curves too tight to allow for level boarding. Nearly all stations required additional paths for emergency egress.  Four street running stops had no formal station at all.
·         Development of Design Options: The study team developed four general station designs that were adapted as appropriate to the 26 locations, and
·         Station Consolidations: Where right of way geometry would not allow for level boarding proposals to consolidate adjacent stations at a point between the two substandard stations were advanced and evaluated. 




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Thursday, April 5, 2018

CNAM Conférences Ferroviaires Américain - 2018 FINAL SYLABUS

The FEA127 seminar will meet ten times during the period 

 Monday 28 May 2018 through Thursday 6 June 2017 

 Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers
61, Rue du Landy | 93210 SAINT DENIS France

Anticipated topics with links to the preliminary notes and readings are listed below: 

1. Monday 28 May 2018 13:30
Introduction to Freight and Passenger Railroading
Click here for reading

2. Tuesday 29 May 2018 0815
US Freight and Supply Chains
Click here for reading

3. Wednesday 30 May 2018 0815
Click here for reading on capacity
Click here for reading on terminals

4. Thursday 31 May 2018 0815
Intermodal Freight and Containers
Click here for reading

5. Thursday 31 May 2018 1330
Transport Efficiency:  OPTO and UTO
Click here for OPTO reading
Click here for UTO reading

6. Monday 4 June 2018 1330
Transportation and Climate Change
Click here for reading
Sustainable Transport Networks
Click here for reading

7. Tuesday 5 June 2018 0815
Transit Service Reliability, Scheduling for Connections and Travel Demand
Click here for reading on reliability
Click here for reading secondary reading on reliability
Click here for scheduling
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Friday, December 29, 2017

Announcing the 2018 Annual Meeting for the TRB Self Powered Rail Car Technologies Subcommittee


The Sonoma-Marin's Area Rail Transit (SMART) system
opened in August 2017 
At the 97th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board

Wednesday January 10, 2018 | 2:30 to 4:00 pm


Marriott Marquis, “Union Station Room” (M3), Washington, DC


Click Here for Details




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Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Boston Ruggles Station Improvements Underway

Ground Breaking Ceremony August 22 2017
Seeking to improve transit access for Boston's Longwood Medical Area (LMA) employees from suburbs to the south of Boston, the community's Medical Academic and Scientific Community Organization (MASCO) asked Jacobs Engineering in 2008 to evaluate possible changes to Ruggles Station that would enable improved frequencies of commuter rail trains stopping at the station.  

Lying less than three miles south of South Station, Ruggles Station is the MBTA’s busiest “inner ring” station with 1,800 daily commuters.  It serves the Providence, Stoughton, Needham, and Franklin commuter rail lines.  All commuter trains on these lines stop in the outbound evening peak at Ruggles, but less than two-thirds of trains during the inbound morning peak.  The principal reason for this imbalance lies in a station design deficiency.  The primary inbound Commuter Rail track (Track Two) does not have a passenger platform at Ruggles Station, making it difficult to operate full inbound peak service.  Three substantive topics were covered during this study to determine whether an investment at Ruggles was warranted:

  1. Market Analysis: Jacobs estimated changes in MBTA ridership that would result from including Ruggles as a stop for all MBTA services passing through the station and estimated how many new Ruggles trips would be oriented toward the LMA.

  1. Engineering Analysis: Jacobs developed, document and recommend options for the construction of a platform serving Track Two at Ruggles.

  1. Economic Evaluation: Jacobs estimated  the costs and benefits of constructing the necessary facilities and adjusting operations for all MBTA Commuter Rail trains currently passing through Ruggles to stop at the station in the future, and compared Ruggles Station expansion with other public transport investments then consideration by the Commonwealth.
Currently, a very high level of Commuter Rail ridership exists at Ruggles Station despite the fact that only a fraction of morning peak trains passing the station stop to provide direct service.  As a result of this deficiency in service almost one third of the 1,800 round trip passengers in 2008 using Ruggles each weekday made a “detour” in the morning via Back Bay returning to Ruggles on the Orange Line adding approximately 13 minutes to their inbound trip.  This detour adds considerably to the overall commuter trip length for a railroad commuter and deters many from traveling to Ruggles from the southern suburbs by rail.
 
Consulting with MASCO, the MBTA, and Northeastern University, Jacobs developed a platform design for the unserved track. The design required use of a small part of adjacent property owned by Northeastern University.    The recommended design will simplify the MBTA’s operations by increasing service flexibility and reliability while also stimulating ridership.    Click here for more about MASCO's role in the project

Today the Massachusetts Governor and Secretary of Transportation and numerous other dignitaries announced that these recommended improvements would be moving forward at a Ruggles Station ground breaking .

“This investment will improve service for riders and access to neighborhoods and employers in Boston for all communities around this T stop,” said Governor Baker. “This new platform at Ruggles will reduce congestion and allow more trains to stop at this major and busy local hub for commuters throughout the region. We are grateful to our federal, local and community partners for their support in delivering more reliable service for the riders.”

“Ruggles Station is one of our busiest stations because it is a major hub for MBTA bus routes and a stop for commuter rail and for the Orange Line,” said Transportation Secretary and CEO Pollack. “Infrastructure improvements being made at Ruggles will make access to the system much easier for people with disabilities, for customers connecting from bus routes, for the local college and high school student population and for the public in general. These improvements are long-overdue and will vastly improve the customer experience and make for more efficient boarding and disembarking for commuter rail and subway riders.”

A total project cost of $38.5 million is supported by a $20 million federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) VI Grant awarded in October 2014, federal FTA funding of $6.8 million and state funding of $11.7 million from the MBTA Revenue Bond fund. With the design phase completed in January 2017, construction is scheduled to be performed from 2017 through 2019.

Governor Baker and Secretary Pollack were joined by MBTA Interim General Manager Steve Poftak, Keolis Commuter Services CEO and General Manager David Scorey, Congressman Mike Capuano, State Representative Chynah Tyler, Boston Transportation Department Commissioner Gina Fiandaca and Northeastern University Senior Vice President and General Counsel Ralph Martin.

Click Here for More Details
And Here for even more details





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Saturday, February 25, 2017

Possible Topic for a Class this Spring

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Monday, February 20, 2017

2017 Séminaire du Rail Américain (Preview 22 February 2017)

The SECF-I3 seminar will meet nine times during the period Tuesday 29 May 2017 through Thursday 8 June 2017 at 292 Rue St. Martin 75003-Paris.
Anticipated topics with links to the preliminary notes and readings are listed below: 

1. Monday 29 May 2017 13:30
Introduction to Freight and Passenger Railroading
Click here for reading

2. Tuesday 30 May 2017 0815
US Freight and Supply Chains
Click here for reading

3. Wednesday 31 May 2017 0815
Click here for reading on capacity
Click here for reading on terminals

4. Thursday 1 June 2017 0815
Intermodal Freight and Containers
Click here for reading

5. Thursday 1 June 2017 1330
Sustainable Transport Networks
Click here for reading

6. Tuesday 6 June 2017 0815
Transportation and Climate Change
Click here for reading

7. Wednesday 7 June 2017 0815
Transit Service Reliability, Scheduling for Connections and Travel Demand
Click here for reading on reliability
Click here for reading secondary reading on reliability
Click here for scheduling
Click here for travel demand

8. Thursday 8 June 2017 0815
Airlines and Package Express 

 or a class selected topic such as 

  • US Rail Safety, 
  • Rail Transport Efficiency, 
  • US Rail Transport for Persons with Disabilities, 
  • Marine Rail Transport 

Click here for reading

9. Thursday 8 June 2017 1330
Mega Projects and Class Evaluation

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Saturday, December 31, 2016

Happy New Year:


  Looking forward to returning to Paris in 2017


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Friday, April 24, 2015

NJTransactions 2015

Just back from three fascinating days in Atlantic City New Jersey participating in the 39th Annual NJTransactions Conference  More than 2,000 attendees focused on solving transportation infrastructure and management problems for the residents of the State of New Jersey.  Interesting and informative sessions on everything from the Northeast Corridor to modern roundabouts and complete streets. Click here to see the program. 

I worked closely with several of my colleagues to develop a session focused on bringing information concerning passenger rail innovation elsewhere in the nation to practitioners in Jersey.  For details click on the links below.  

Commuter Rail Expansion Projects in Other Regions – Challenges & Successes Session Coordinator J Quinty

Restoring Passenger Rail Service to the Granite State  
D. Nelson, Jacobs Engineering

Bringing Commuter Rail to South Florida’s Urban Cores:  Tri-Rail Coastal Link  J Quinty, SFRTA

Boston Surface Railroad: Exploring the Next Frontier in Commuter Transportation  D. Nelson, Jacobs Engineering and V. Bono, Boston Surface Railroad Company



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