Description
This paper examines the relationship between metropolitan mass transit ridership and intercity passenger rail ridership. Public funding for passenger rail has increased significantly in recent years. It is important for Amtrak, the nation's only major intercity rail provider, to use this funding to increase the effectiveness of the intercity rail system, which lags behind systems in Asia and Europe. Accurate ridership forecasting is a critical part of this effort because decisions about new rail investments are based on anticipated ridership levels. Previous research has uncovered many factors known to affect intercity rail demand, including train speed, train frequency, policy decisions and historical transportation trends. It has also found that the vast majority (90%) of forecasts for new rail infrastructure projects are inaccurate. This paper helps to address this problem by adding to the current knowledge about intercity rail demand through an empirical analysis of the relationship between mass transit ridership and intercity rail ridership. A strong positive correlation is found between mass transit ridership and intercity rail ridership, indicating that this measure should be incorporated in future forecasting efforts
