Provided by Gene Skoropowski, Managing Director, Capitol Corridor JPA.
We just received the May 2007 ridership results, and while California in total is ‘looking good’, the Capitol Corridor is skyrocketing! I am still in awe of where we are in riders.
Gene
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Summary of May 2007 ridership and ticket revenue results for California state-supported service:
Capitol Corridor:
· 141,789 passengers +18.2% vs. FY06 – highest monthly ridership total in the history of the service!
· $1,680,877 ticket revenue +30.3% vs. FY06
(May 2006 ridership was 119,986 and the highest prior month was April 2007 at 127,572) (Fiscal year-to-date ridership increase is +13.3% due to 8 consecutive months of substantial growth, and the revenue increase is +21.7%, again, after 8 months. This is going to be another very good year)
Contributing factors: continuation of ridership growth following introduction of the 32 train schedule last fall; target marketing to fill seats on the trains with available capacity; improvement of on-time performance by Union Pacific and Amtrak mechanical; more trains with ‘full consists’ thereby offering more seats (but we are sort of ‘out-of-rabbits’ with available coaches, and Caltrans Rail is working with Amtrak to supplement the Northern California fleet with some overhauled Amtrak Superliner coaches, which will really help us with seat capacity until new coaches arrive in 4-5 years, assuming passage of the capital funding included in the Governor’s “May Revise” budget, submitted last month.) There was some very modest increase in riders in the week following the I-580 bridge fire/closure, and some increase from escalating gasoline prices. Overall, these last two were minor contributors, but contributors none the less. The bottom line here is that our service is the travel choice for an increasing number of riders, and for an increasingly diverse number of reasons, largely due to an increased availability/frequency of train service.
The revenue-to-cost ratio is still looking to be on-track at between 46%to 50% by September 30, the end of the fiscal year.
Ridership for the last 12 months is now 1,384,364 meaning that we will likely also break the 1.4 million ridership mark for the first time during this fiscal year.
Average trip length is holding at just under 70 miles, so that’s getting close to 10,000,000 passenger miles per month (or as California DOT Director Will Kempton often quotes “that was 10,000,000 VMTs this month that were on Capitol Corridor trains and were NOT on California’s highways.”)
Pacific Surfliner:
· 247,986 passengers +3.5% vs. FY06 and a record for the month!
· $4,093,804 ticket revenue +11.4% vs. FY06
San Joaquins:
· 75,815 passengers +0.0% vs. FY06
· $2,204,265 ticket revenue +7.1% vs. FY06
