MBTA Commuter Rail (Operations, Keolis, & Short Term)

JeffDowntown said:
Agreed, understood. But I am not sure it is low enough. Are trains running close to full on weekends and holidays?
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I wonder what the point of diminishing returns is on this though. $10 all you can ride is already pretty damn cheap. At what point is lowering it further going to actually cost more versus attracting more riders?
 
KCasiglio said:
I wonder what the point of diminishing returns is on this though. $10 all you can ride is already pretty damn cheap. At what point is lowering it further going to actually cost more versus attracting more riders?
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Good point -- and the other factor is schedule. Until frequency of service is addressed, there will always be a upper limit of ridership. You really have to get to regional rail levels of service (like Metro North) to have full trains on weekends.

My mindset about using Metro-North versus using CR is completely different. I visit greater NYC a lot, and with Metro-North I never think about the schedule, I just grab the next train (because the wait is pretty short). CR generates a lot of schedule anxiety about missing a train and waiting a long time.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Good point -- and the other factor is schedule. Until frequency of service is addressed, there will always be a upper limit of ridership. You really have to get to regional rail levels of service (like Metro North) to have full trains on weekends.

My mindset about using Metro-North versus using CR is completely different. I visit greater NYC a lot, and with Metro-North I never think about the schedule, I just grab the next train (because the wait is pretty short). CR generates a lot of schedule anxiety about missing a train and waiting a long time.
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There are definitely lines that run mostly full trains on weekends and should easily have frequencies improved. For example, the Providence Line is quite full most weekends on roughly once every two hour frequency. 90 minute frequency on the Providence Line on weekends should be a no-brainer.
 
Weekend frequencies on the Commuter Rail are way too low. There's been a lot of ridership on the Franklin and Worcester Lines whenever I've taken them on weekends. But I usually end up driving to the Green Line on weekends because of the inconvenient Commuter Rail schedule.
 
themissinglink said:
Weekend frequencies on the Commuter Rail are way too low. There's been a lot of ridership on the Franklin and Worcester Lines whenever I've taken them on weekends. But I usually end up driving to the Green Line on weekends because of the inconvenient Commuter Rail schedule.
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Same, I tend to drive to Wonderland for the same reason, even though I can walk to Lynn or Swampscott stations.
 
KCasiglio said:
I wonder what the point of diminishing returns is on this though. $10 all you can ride is already pretty damn cheap. At what point is lowering it further going to actually cost more versus attracting more riders?
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Many downtown garages have ~$20 weekend daily rates. For a day trip into Boston for 2+ people, it's tough to argue they should buy $20 of weekend passes and have to be on the restricted weekend train schedule. Any additional people or luggage makes it an even harder sell.
 
MjolnirMan said:
Many downtown garages have ~$20 weekend daily rates. For a day trip into Boston for 2+ people, it's tough to argue they should buy $20 of weekend passes and have to be on the restricted weekend train schedule. Any additional people or luggage makes it an even harder sell.
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Yeah I think the weekend passes are best for people who live in the city and are looking to get out rather than the opposite, but that's not where (I assume) the most demand is.
 
MjolnirMan said:
Many downtown garages have ~$20 weekend daily rates. For a day trip into Boston for 2+ people, it's tough to argue they should buy $20 of weekend passes and have to be on the restricted weekend train schedule. Any additional people or luggage makes it an even harder sell.
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Even cheaper than that. Post Office Sq is $10 nights + weekends, and is a very nice facility.

I'll also add one more voice to the chorus of frequency + price (when with other people).

Boston's traffic isn't that bad outside work commute hours/direction (unlike how NYC can be), which only further adds to it. What really makes leisure use of CR hard is the low frequency. Metro-North I can mostly just show up and go in both directions, especially for the major stations.

Boston, especially for trying to get back home, is absolutely miserable on CR unless you plan your whole day around the exact train times.

Between 6pm and end of service on a weekend, there are 29 trains from Grand Central to Stamford on MNRR, and the last one departs at 1:53AM.

On the MBTA....there are 3 trains from Boston to Worcester (and the last is 11:15pm) and 3 from Boston to Providence. While I don't exactly expect Boston to achieve NYC metro frequencies, it's ridiculous that we're running services with over 2hr gaps between trains on the weekends, even on the largest lines/to the biggest satellite cities.
 
millerm277 said:
Even cheaper than that. Post Office Sq is $10 nights + weekends, and is a very nice facility.

I'll also add one more voice to the chorus of frequency + price (when with other people).

Boston's traffic isn't that bad outside work commute hours/direction (unlike how NYC can be), which only further adds to it. What really makes leisure use of CR hard is the low frequency. Metro-North I can mostly just show up and go in both directions, especially for the major stations.

Boston, especially for trying to get back home, is absolutely miserable on CR unless you plan your whole day around the exact train times.

Between 6pm and end of service on a weekend, there are 29 trains from Grand Central to Stamford on MNRR, and the last one departs at 1:53AM.

On the MBTA....there are 3 trains from Boston to Worcester (and the last is 11:15pm) and 3 from Boston to Providence. While I don't exactly expect Boston to achieve NYC metro frequencies, it's ridiculous that we're running services with over 2hr gaps between trains on the weekends, even on the largest lines/to the biggest satellite cities.
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Staffing and staff structure are the biggest reason they can't/haven't upped weekend frequencies even though some lines like Providence are producing very high per-train weekend ridership. Crew boards at Metro-North and LIRR have way larger flex shifts for weekday off-peaks and weekends, because they've been running that way ever since they first became publicly operated and have the incumbent scale. The T (like many other agencies that have little presence on weekends) is still so locked into the weekday peak that their crew boards lack any of the elasticity required to scale well to weekend service increases. Even stuff like Needham Sunday service was a big struggle for them to implement deep into the 21st century, with several false starts before such (still crappy) weekend schedules became normalized enough to stick around. And their cancellation rate on weekends is still way too high whenever there are shortfalls in crew availability, because they obviously prioritize moving around people to fill weekday peak slots first. So simply surging slots to Providence and high-demand Gateway City lines on weekends proves incredibly difficult from a staffing perspective. It's a big structural change to add the extra flex-shift dimensions to the crew board.

The good news is that the current regime seems fully committed to going to the Regional Rail all-day frequency model which will add a lot of staff shifts on the weekday off-peak adding to the pool of weekend availability with less 'raiding' of weekend shifts when they're short on weekday peak staff. But I would expect that's going to be a slow, expensive, and arduous process because of the sheer number of engineer, lead conductor, and assistant conductor positions they'd need to hire for to provide that kind of shifting elasticity. Since the RR job market in New England is so competitive right now with Amtrak always hiring and CSX + the Gennesee & Wyoming lines + a number of shortlines in aggressive growth mode, they're going to need to pay good salaries, come up with an aggressive recruiting approach that even reaches out-of-region to entice relocation, and subsidize a lot of training opportunities for entry-level recruits. All of that requires a fair amount of bureaucratic machinery to get going. So it's probably going to be a slow process to backfill weekend schedules even on lines (like Providence) with obvious immediate payoff.
 
KCasiglio said:
Yeah I think the weekend passes are best for people who live in the city and are looking to get out rather than the opposite, but that's not where (I assume) the most demand is.
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The $10 weekend pass has been incredible for my household for this exact reason. We use it all the time to leave the city, often to visit family, but also to take day trips to explore towns we haven't been to before. Bridgewater and Whitman are two recent examples, both of which we wouldn't have visited without the weekend pass! I'm not sure what the local tourism spin-off economic benefits are of the pass, but I know I've probably taken 30+ weekend trips specifically due to the $10 all-you-can-ride fare since its rollout. (All that said, the value proposition would be so much higher with more frequent trains, as we definitely do have to plan carefully around the timetables.)

Speaking of the fare, we used it this weekend. First time visiting Wachusett station!

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www.wcvb.com

Heavy delays, several Commuter Rail trains stalled due to switch issue near Attleboro

Over a dozen MBTA commuter rail trains have been stalled due to a switch issue in Attleboro, Massachusetts, the agency confirmed Monday.
www.wcvb.com www.wcvb.com
Many trains were stopped at the Mansfield station or hadn't left South Station at its scheduled time, the MBTA said in several social media posts.
Providence/Stoughton Line trains are experiencing delays due to an Amtrak switch issue. Crews are on site addressing the issue," said Keolis, the agency that operates the commuter rail lines.
From Sky 5, a crew was seen on the train tracks working on the impacted switch. Sky 5 video also showed two Amtrak trains, one Acela and one regional, were also stalled, although Amtrak has not yet posted any alerts about their status.
Amtrak confirmed that crews are currently making repairs to solve the issue.
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17,450+ Boston Stadium Train Tickets Sold during First Day of Sales | News | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.
www.mbta.com www.mbta.com

17,000 out of ~140,000 tickets sold (at $80 each) for the World Cup event trains in 24 hours, with the most popular being 6,200 (out of ~20,000) for the Scotland vs Haiti Saturday 9pm game. While the most event tickets the T has ever sold in 24 hours, I do wonder if the price is scaring some people off.
 
I was looking forward to taking the train out for a few games but I noped out after seeing how expensive the tickets were. The game tickets are expensive enough. The minimum price of attending this world cup is insane to me. Hopefully there will be some shuttle bus options that are cheaper.
 
HBH said:

17,450+ Boston Stadium Train Tickets Sold during First Day of Sales | News | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.
www.mbta.com www.mbta.com

17,000 out of ~140,000 tickets sold (at $80 each) for the World Cup event trains in 24 hours, with the most popular being 6,200 (out of ~20,000) for the Scotland vs Haiti Saturday 9pm game. While the most event tickets the T has ever sold in 24 hours, I do wonder if the price is scaring some people off.
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Agree. I have no problem with the MBTA charging a lot extra for this special service. But I do hope they've picked a price that still leads to basically sold out trains.

It is still early, though. Especially for people coming from out of town, they might not have thought though transportation, or even think it's something they have to plan for. In a lot of cities, stadiums are well integrated into the city and public transit networks, so people might not even consider there's some special event ticket they should buy ahead of time.
 
Longfellow said:
I mean, they should have used dynamic pricing, right? Like Amtrak. First 20% of tickets are $25, then the next are $50, $80, etc...
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Does the vendor contracted for the mTicket app support dynamic pricing models? My guess is that the T/Keolis never thought about it.
 
MjolnirMan said:
Does the vendor contracted for the mTicket app support dynamic pricing models? My guess is that the T/Keolis never thought about it.
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I assume there is probably some way to manually update the cost of a ticket, they don't have to time it perfectly.
 
MjolnirMan said:
Does the vendor contracted for the mTicket app support dynamic pricing models? My guess is that the T/Keolis never thought about it.
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You could totally do it manually. Set the price to $25, release X amount of tickets, once those are sold out change the price, release more, etc etc.
 
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