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

[Koopzilla24]

So I'm working on that Commuter Rail data parsing and I found that, as expected, the day of the Celtics Parade was the highest individual ridership day of the year so far by many thousand on each line... except the Greenbush Line. There's actually a not insignificant drop off of a few hundred from the day before and a drop of exactly 1000 from Monday of that week 5829->4829. This is also not an outlier in weekday ridership and is actually down nearly 1000 from the beginning of the month of June (6557). Friday is also consistently the lowest ridership day of each week which remains unchanged with the parade. What is interesting though is that the Saturday the day after has double the typical weekend ridership at 1004 riders. This suggests to me that folks from the wealthier municipalities along the Greenbush Line are doing a lot more driving for special events or leisure travel into Boston and using the train strictly for commuting to and from work when they need to be in the office. The Saturday after could be more people deciding to take the train in thinking it'd be less busy for a Saturday in the city since everyone was there the day before.

 

[Highwayguy]

Currently working on a dive into Commuter Rail Weekday v Weekend ridership data in relation to service provided, such as the percentage ridership drops off compared to the percentage drop in service, as well as other interesting trends in ridership. It'll take some time to sort out but the first thing I've taken a look at is how Fairmount Line ridership has changed since the implementation of 30min service:

In May 2024 prior to the May 20th schedule change the Fairmount averaged 3604 boardings on weekdays and 672 on weekends. Immediately following the schedule change ridership shot up to a peak of 5525 boardings on Tuesday, May 21st. May 24th was the only other day in the remainder of the month to top 5000 boardings but the weekday average for the last couple weeks of May rose to 4364, a +21% increase. The following month of June weekday ridership stabilized averaging 4236 daily boardings and none surpassing the 5000 threshold. Weekend ridership on the other hand was up to 921 daily, a +37% increase, with no trending drop-off from Saturday to Sunday.

What this comes out to is on weekdays, a +36% increase in service resulted in a +21% increase in ridership. On weekends, a +117% increase in service resulted in a +37% increase in ridership.

These are disappointing ridership numbers, esp on the weekend, no? Unless I’m (hopefully) missing something, the fiscal argument for increased frequency is that the added flexibility of extra trips would increase overall ridership more than the increase in service, even if the added trains themselves are (relatively) under capacity. Although frequency is so critical to providing good service rather than just service, hard to blame the bean counters at the T if they are hesitant to add operating expenses when %increase(ridership/service)<1.

I’m not one of the knuckle draggers who think transit should be aspire to be revenue neutral, merely curious if that ridership data points to spending more finite money on increased CR frequency, or allocating those operating expenses towards putting out some of the T’s 100 other fires.

 

[Teban54]

These are disappointing ridership numbers, esp on the weekend, no? Unless I’m (hopefully) missing something, the fiscal argument for increased frequency is that the added flexibility of extra trips would increase overall ridership more than the increase in service, even if the added trains themselves are (relatively) under capacity. Although frequency is so critical to providing good service rather than just service, hard to blame the bean counters at the T if they are hesitant to add operating expenses when %increase(ridership/service)<1.

I’m not one of the knuckle draggers who think transit should be aspire to be revenue neutral, merely curious if that ridership data points to spending more finite money on increased CR frequency, or allocating those operating expenses towards putting out some of the T’s 100 other fires.

I mean, a few factors are at play here:

• While every 30 minutes is a huge improvement from before, it still doesn't seem frequent enough to be relied on as a show-up-and-go service.
• Every Fairmount Line station has an alternative bus service, many of which are Key Bus Routes that still run more frequently than the Fairmount Line on weekends.
• Weekend trips are likely more localized and involve going to neighborhoods, restaurants, grocery stores, etc. In the context of Dorchester and Roxbury, they may be better fulfilled by buses going to Nubian (Roxbury's cultural center) than a train going to South Station, possibly with the exception of Newmarket (South Bay Center) and some amenities at Upham's Corner. The former also offers better connections to Copley Sq, another popular weekend destination.

But yeah, it would be interesting to compare ridership changes of bus routes connecting to Fairmount Line stations.

 

[Koopzilla24]

These are disappointing ridership numbers, esp on the weekend, no? Unless I’m (hopefully) missing something, the fiscal argument for increased frequency is that the added flexibility of extra trips would increase overall ridership more than the increase in service, even if the added trains themselves are (relatively) under capacity. Although frequency is so critical to providing good service rather than just service, hard to blame the bean counters at the T if they are hesitant to add operating expenses when %increase(ridership/service)<1.

I’m not one of the knuckle draggers who think transit should be aspire to be revenue neutral, merely curious if that ridership data points to spending more finite money on increased CR frequency, or allocating those operating expenses towards putting out some of the T’s 100 other fires.

The way I look at it is if you compare it to a 30min bus the train ridership exceeds those frequency buses by a couple thousand. It's low for it's total capacity but consider that those living in the region haven't had useable rail service there for the better part of a century so changing their travel habits will happen a little more gradually, and the stations themselves don't have much in the way of commercial destinations around them.

 

[Stlin]

A question - do we happen to know the marginal cost of each additional weekend frequency? Given the shortness of Fairmount, I believe operating the current weekday and weekend schedule both require 2-3 consists - the marginal cost of service is, presumably, just fuel & consumables since you're paying the same number of train crew for their time. Given that, I'm pretty sure that any increase in ridership is probably worth it, even just to habituate the populace, especially as we move towards a 15 minute model on this route.

 

[Delvin4519]

While every 30 minutes is a huge improvement from before, it still doesn't seem frequent enough to be relied on as a show-up-and-go service.

Also, that 30 minute service ends at 5:03 p.m. on weekends before it moves to hourly service. On weekdays, the 30 minute service extends to 7:00 p.m. and all the way to 8:47 p.m. outbound. Plus the fact that the headways extend to 45 minutes for 2 trips around noon to accommadate freight movements. Evening frequencies are still relatively poor, for those who want trips out for dinner or evening activities in the city. Having to plan for hourly service after 5:00 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. isn't fun, if the 30 minute service only goes out to 5-6pm.

 

[cats10000]

Ignoring the capacity of the main terminals, what is the highest tph of the CR branches without signal upgrades or double tracking projects if you use lightweight European MUs?

Also, could some MUs be short turned at outlying stations (Braintree, Medford/Tufts, Quincy Center, Forest Hills, Oak Grove, and Porter) for additional frequency on outer sections?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Ignoring the capacity of the main terminals, what is the highest tph of the CR branches without signal upgrades or double tracking projects if you use lightweight European MUs?

EMU's compact the schedules lots, but their presence alone doesn't impact TPH too much because just about every line needs at least *some* infrastructure upgrades to do better than today. The Rail Vision targets :15 service (at least 8 TPH) for the inside-128 zone and for mainlines out to their first major branch split, with :30 service (4 TPH) out to the branches and termini, and hourly service (2 TPH) to branches-of-branches (basically, Fall River and New Bedford).

You'd need some minor signal upgrades and some minor double-track infill on most lines to achieve what the Rail Vision proposes. Most lines aren't *completely* plug-and-play, and simply dropping in the EMU's doesn't get you out of tidying up these bucket lists. . .

• Providence/Stoughton: 3rd track Readville-Canton Jct.
• Worcester: double-track platforms at the 3 Newton stops, more crossovers Allston-Newton, tri-track Wellesley-Framingham for Amtrak and expresses
• Fairmount: double-track Readville Station.
• Franklin: completion of Norfolk-Franklin and Norwood-Walpole double-tracking projects.
• Old Colony main: JFK and Quincy Center station double-tracking, Dorchester double-tracking, some but not all DT backfill through Quincy.
• Middleboro/Plymouth/Greenbush branches: lengthening of existing passing sidings and adding select additional passing sidings and double-track platforms (not complete DT, but more than there is today)
• Needham: pretty much impossible to do better-than hourly service unless converted to a Needham-Forest Hills shuttle or converted to Orange+Green Line rapid transit
• Fitchburg: Waltham Center double-track infill
• Haverhill/Wildcat: finish Ballardvale and Andover station double-tracking, possible double-tracking of the Wildcat Branch
• Reading: Wellington passing siding, double-track Reading Jct., double-track Reading Station platforms
• Lowell: layover yard or else beginning and end of day are going to be gapped-out
• Eastern Route main: upgrades to Chelsea grade crossings to whack speed restrictions, possible infill of South Salem Station to better control meets at the single-track tunnel
• Newburyport Branch: 2 additional passing sidings

Rockport Branch might be fine as-is...but you're still doing light touches to the Eastern mainline to get there. Stoughton Branch is fine if it's just continuing to terminate at Stoughton...but you need that NEC tri-tracking to get there. If South Coast Rail Phase II gets revisited, definitely double-tracking on Stoughton and beyond.


Bottom line: there's a hodgepodge of eat-your-peas stuff that's non-optional. EMU's shorten the schedules considerably, but they don't unto themselves expand them.

Also, could some MUs be short turned at outlying stations (Braintree, Medford/Tufts, Quincy Center, Forest Hills, Oak Grove, and Porter) for additional frequency on outer sections?

That wouldn't work well. Turning a RR train around takes about 10 minutes of downtime for changing ends and doing mandatory brake tests, no matter whether it's a push-pull or an EMU. So you'd be blocking the mainlines for a too-extended duration. It wouldn't work at all at single-track stations like QC and OG, and it wouldn't work at peak (only off-peak) at Braintree where 2 branches are pumping bi-directionally. Porter is probably OK, but North Station isn't over-capacity like South Station is so there's also little reason to try. Infilling a station at Medford/Tufts is probably too expensive because of the land acquisition costs of trying to side-by-side it, so that wouldn't work. Forest Hills would work for Needham only because the branch has its own turnout, but not the other three NEC commuter lines because the crossing over games would block Amtrak...and Rozzie/West Rox/Needham riders were already polled for the Rail Vision on the viability of doing a forced transfer in exchange for more Needham frequencies, and spat it back at the T with malice.

But more bluntly, the outer transfers are not where most riders are going. They're overwhelmingly going to the CBD, the CBD's transfer stops, or within a few stops of the terminals. Dumping them out on the outskirts of the rapid transit system only serves to overwhelm rapid transit with transferees at terminal stations not equipped for such transfer swells (this was one of the sticking points with the Needham-FH forced shuttle idea...it would totally incapacitate the already crowded FH Orange platforms), and gobble up all the seats at the terminals for a much longer trip to the same inner CBD stops. It's worse transit, and would discourage more ridership than whatever blood-from-stone you could wring for frequencies on the un-upgraded lines. It's worse overall value than upgrading the terminals' capacity.

 

[AndrewOnTheMBTA]

Is there some type of map (just out of curiosity) made to show the HSR speed limits for commuter rail lines, if they're converted? Or alternatively, some type of conversion from the commuter rail to HSR speed limits? I.e. 79 MPH on segments of commuter rail on Worcester line could be X number?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Is there some type of map (just out of curiosity) made to show the HSR speed limits for commuter rail lines, if they're converted? Or alternatively, some type of conversion from the commuter rail to HSR speed limits? I.e. 79 MPH on segments of commuter rail on Worcester line could be X number?

You're capped at 110 MPH (Class 6) anywhere there are grade crossings. 125 (Class 7) and above requires a totally sealed corridor. So that eliminates almost the entirety of the not-NEC system from true "high speed" contention immediately. The Fairmount Line is the only not-NEC sealed corridor out there, and that one's not nearly straight enough to matter.

There are no other CR corridors that could do triple-digit speeds at even an "Emerging HSR" standard. *MAYBE* the Newburyport Branch north of Ipswich could do 110 for inconsequential length on some far-future Portsmouth-rerouted Downeaster, but that's it. Curves and crossing clusters pretty much preclude it everywhere else. Since only the Worcester and Lowell/Haverhill lines actually have super-express traffic that even have the possibility of taking advantage of better-than-Class 4 speeds, your analysis is pretty much limited to the crossing-few Downeaster and Lake Shore Ltd./Inland Route corridors. There you might find a tiny bit of Somerville-Wilmington uprateable to 90 MPH, and a couple fairly insignificant spots on the Worcester Line likewise at 90. But while the curves tend to be fairly gentle on the NH Main and B&A...they definitely aren't straight.

 

[AndrewOnTheMBTA]

You're capped at 110 MPH (Class 6) anywhere there are grade crossings. 125 (Class 7) and above requires a totally sealed corridor. So that eliminates almost the entirety of the not-NEC system from true "high speed" contention immediately. The Fairmount Line is the only not-NEC sealed corridor out there, and that one's not nearly straight enough to matter.

There are no other CR corridors that could do triple-digit speeds at even an "Emerging HSR" standard. *MAYBE* the Newburyport Branch north of Ipswich could do 110 for inconsequential length on some far-future Portsmouth-rerouted Downeaster, but that's it. Curves and crossing clusters pretty much preclude it everywhere else. Since only the Worcester and Lowell/Haverhill lines actually have super-express traffic that even have the possibility of taking advantage of better-than-Class 4 speeds, your analysis is pretty much limited to the crossing-few Downeaster and Lake Shore Ltd./Inland Route corridors. There you might find a tiny bit of Somerville-Wilmington uprateable to 90 MPH, and a couple fairly insignificant spots on the Worcester Line likewise at 90. But while the curves tend to be fairly gentle on the NH Main and B&A...they definitely aren't straight.

For a visual that seems to be accurate based on the redditor/creator who made it, I found a cool map on it: https://www.openrailwaymap.org//mobile.php?availableTranslations=[object Object]

 

[Teban54]

EMU's compact the schedules lots, but their presence alone doesn't impact TPH too much because just about every line needs at least *some* infrastructure upgrades to do better than today. The Rail Vision targets :15 service (at least 8 TPH) for the inside-128 zone and for mainlines out to their first major branch split, with :30 service (4 TPH) out to the branches and termini, and hourly service (2 TPH) to branches-of-branches (basically, Fall River and New Bedford).
[...]

I have been wondering about this for a while: It looks like MBTA laid out several Rail Vision alternatives in 2019, and the most aggressive one, Alternative 6, aims for much more service than you suggested here. In fact, if I'm reading this right, it has 15-min frequency for every single branch other than Greenbush. Yes, that includes Newburyport and Rockport separately, Fall River and New Bedford separately, etc.

Yet, TransitMatters says that Alternative 6 is the one that the T's Fiscal and Management Control Board (FMCB) voted for.

How serious is the T about targeting such an aggressive, and possibly even excessive, alternative? I had been burned on Reddit before for saying that I didn't believe Salem will receive 7.5-min frequencies, because people were taking Alternative 6 at face value as the "official" plan.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

:15 everywhere is definitely excessive for the density of the average past-128 stop. I can't imagine 8 TPH is going to catch flies at the Kingston sand pit or outside-downtown Newburyport parking lot, much less at the Hansons and Norfolks of the system. So many of the outer-zone stations are primarily parking-oriented, and there's nothing in the plan about deploying that "Marshall Plan's" worth of suburban buses to make the SUAW frequencies draw all-day from always-pulsing connections. The well really runs dry at that level, and for the expense of double-tracking EVERYTHING and upscaling EVERYTHING you need some sort of immediately tangible avenue for amortizing the cost. Alt. 6 seems like it's waiting for an almost-unprojectable 50 years from now when the suburban bus and microtransit buildout is complete enough and car culture has changed enough and density zoning has changed enough that we're on a whole different planet mobility-wise. Which is faulty logic when the Rail Vision is explicitly NOT tasked with building out all that secondary suburban transit and dictating the way we build density. I'd absolutely believe that would cost well over $40B down to the last hidden details, and that we'd have no avenue for ever paying it down as long as last-mile mobility more closely resembles today's conditions than that bus/microtransit/zoning-transformed neverland described ^above^.

Plenty of past-128 Key Stations will get :15 service based on overlapping :30 patterns. Norwood and Walpole by virtue of overlapping Foxboro & Franklin service. Natick and Framingham with the short-turns and/or Northborough service. Brockton maybe if there were an extra short-turn flavor grafted on to the mid-Middleboro Line. Lawrence could pick up an ever-expanding Downeaster schedule as an infill, joining Haverhill for the express commuter set. Lowell would be slated to pick up a Concord, NH super-express. Providence expresses are a job a fuller Amtrak slate can serve. I mean, the tools are very much there for picking the spots around the most-essential Key stops that don't neatly conform to the map without spending ourselves stupid on the non-Key stops that'll never draw at those frequencies in our children's lifetimes.


There's a reason why I avoid Reddit.

 

[aquaticko]

^^Can't ever stop imagining a fantasy land where not everyone's forced into a car outside 128, they spent decades building housing to meet demand, and Greater Boston's actually kept its population growing as it probably wanted to (so to speak), rather than forcing people to totally different parts of the country. That's definitely the missed part of the conversation in a lot of dialogue on housing/transport in the U.S.; past a certain point, you're actively choosing to make more room for cars at the expense room for more people.

Especially now that the Sunbelt seems set to regularly reach temps >110F in the summer, it's more than a little dystopian to realize that the only way living year-round in a region like that is going to be bearable by most people is by going from your air-conditioned house to your air-conditioned car to your air-conditioned job/school/store.

 

[jbray]

:15 everywhere is definitely excessive for the density of the average past-128 stop. I can't imagine 8 TPH is going to catch flies at the Kingston sand pit or outside-downtown Newburyport parking lot, much less at the Hansons and Norfolks of the system. So many of the outer-zone stations are primarily parking-oriented, and there's nothing in the plan about deploying that "Marshall Plan's" worth of suburban buses to make the SUAW frequencies draw all-day from always-pulsing connections. The well really runs dry at that level, and for the expense of double-tracking EVERYTHING and upscaling EVERYTHING you need some sort of immediately tangible avenue for amortizing the cost. Alt. 6 seems like it's waiting for an almost-unprojectable 50 years from now when the suburban bus and microtransit buildout is complete enough and car culture has changed enough and density zoning has changed enough that we're on a whole different planet mobility-wise. Which is faulty logic when the Rail Vision is explicitly NOT tasked with building out all that secondary suburban transit and dictating the way we build density. I'd absolutely believe that would cost well over $40B down to the last hidden details, and that we'd have no avenue for ever paying it down as long as last-mile mobility more closely resembles today's conditions than that bus/microtransit/zoning-transformed neverland described ^above^.

Plenty of past-128 Key Stations will get :15 service based on overlapping :30 patterns. Norwood and Walpole by virtue of overlapping Foxboro & Franklin service. Natick and Framingham with the short-turns and/or Northborough service. Brockton maybe if there were an extra short-turn flavor grafted on to the mid-Middleboro Line. Lawrence could pick up an ever-expanding Downeaster schedule as an infill, joining Haverhill for the express commuter set. Lowell would be slated to pick up a Concord, NH super-express. Providence expresses are a job a fuller Amtrak slate can serve. I mean, the tools are very much there for picking the spots around the most-essential Key stops that don't neatly conform to the map without spending ourselves stupid on the non-Key stops that'll never draw at those frequencies in our children's lifetimes.


There's a reason why I avoid Reddit.

From a certain perspective, the extra funding and fare-free policies on the RTAs is a step in this direction. It's not enough to be a Marshall plan, but it is something. On the other side of this coin is also a chicken and egg problem: Why would RTA's and municipal shuttles (like in Acton) be compelled to run more frequent service to their stations if the train is currently coming every hour? We're caught in this place where no one wants to fund the first step on either side because the inherent value is with both.

You can avoid Reddit all you want, but there are a lot more people there and actual advocacy for change requires consensus. I often direct users who I see frequently engaging on r/mbta to this forum because I feel the format here is more conducive to building that consensus, but we are still a drop in the bucket compared to the userbase over there. It's all well and good to have consensus here but if it doesn't get mover and shaker eyes then it's all crayon drawings regardless of how technically or politically sound the ideas are.

 

[Koopzilla24]

Commuter Rail Trends Part I
For the first part of my dive into CR ridership data I took a look at how ridership panned out during June 2024 which has been the highest ridership month for the CR so far post-pandemic (data is unfortunately unavailable prior to 2020 besides the 2018 counts).

-Overall average Weekday ridership was 112,379 while Weekend ridership was 33,959, a -70% drop. That's quite a large drop and if weekend ridership has been higher than pre-pandemic like they say then pre-pandemic must've been abysmal.

-The overall service drop from Weekday to Weekend was -49% (259->133 trips). In pure trip numbers this appears like a standard North American weekend service falloff but the line-by-line picture displays how the T's 2hr every line service is actually quite inequitable to the lines serving the most riders. The bulk of the trip removals occur on the Providence, Worcester, and Franklin Lines.

This is in contrast with the lines that see the least service reduction, the Old Colony Lines, due primarily to having far less weekday service to begin with.

The ridership effect of these massive service falloffs aren't enough to unseat the Providence Line as the highest ridership weekend line but there is a massive effect. The Worcester Line does see itself drop down to #3 notably behind the only "line" not following the heavy service falloff trend, the Newburyport/Rockport.

The Franklin Line has the worst ridership falloff of the highest ridership lines (it's also seeing record weekday ridership).

What the Newburyport/Rockport demonstrates is, the obvious, that maintaining a reasonable level of service on the weekends retains a decent amount of ridership. It accomplishes this with its highest ridership coming from its main truck, something the Franklin Line can emulate as well as the Providence somewhat. If the T maintained their 2hr service model but including the Stoughton and Foxboro branches, they'd at least see a bit of a weekend ridership increase. The case is stronger for the Franklin Line since there is a lot of demand for weekend trips to Patriot Place and Legacy Place as well as Norwood, Dedham, and Hyde Park residents generating a lot of the line's ridership. Stoughton has a larger question mark over it because it isn't that large of a contributor to the Providence Line ridership and Providence as well as Worcester should have at least hourly weekend service anyway.

A side note on the Old Colonies:
Despite the minimal ridership falloff they simply don't have the population density or are too wealthy to bother with even worse frequencies than weekdays (aside from the Middleboro) so they're weekend ridership drop is the worst of all.

 

[Teban54]

Commuter Rail Trends Part I
For the first part of my dive into CR ridership data I took a look at how ridership panned out during June 2024 which has been the highest ridership month for the CR so far post-pandemic (data is unfortunately unavailable prior to 2020 besides the 2018 counts).

-Overall average Weekday ridership was 112,379 while Weekend ridership was 33,959, a -70% drop. That's quite a large drop and if weekend ridership has been higher than pre-pandemic like they say then pre-pandemic must've been abysmal.

-The overall service drop from Weekday to Weekend was -49% (259->133 trips). In pure trip numbers this appears like a standard North American weekend service falloff but the line-by-line picture displays how the T's 2hr every line service is actually quite inequitable to the lines serving the most riders. The bulk of the trip removals occur on the Providence, Worcester, and Franklin Lines.
View attachment 54319
This is in contrast with the lines that see the least service reduction, the Old Colony Lines, due primarily to having far less weekday service to begin with.
View attachment 54320
The ridership effect of these massive service falloffs aren't enough to unseat the Providence Line as the highest ridership weekend line but there is a massive effect. The Worcester Line does see itself drop down to #3 notably behind the only "line" not following the heavy service falloff trend, the Newburyport/Rockport.
View attachment 54321View attachment 54322
The Franklin Line has the worst ridership falloff of the highest ridership lines (it's also seeing record weekday ridership).
View attachment 54323
What the Newburyport/Rockport demonstrates is, the obvious, that maintaining a reasonable level of service on the weekends retains a decent amount of ridership. It accomplishes this with its highest ridership coming from its main truck, something the Franklin Line can emulate as well as the Providence somewhat. If the T maintained their 2hr service model but including the Stoughton and Foxboro branches, they'd at least see a bit of a weekend ridership increase. The case is stronger for the Franklin Line since there is a lot of demand for weekend trips to Patriot Place and Legacy Place as well as Norwood, Dedham, and Hyde Park residents generating a lot of the line's ridership. Stoughton has a larger question mark over it because it isn't that large of a contributor to the Providence Line ridership and Providence as well as Worcester should have at least hourly weekend service anyway.

A side note on the Old Colonies:
Despite the minimal ridership falloff they simply don't have the population density or are too wealthy to bother with even worse frequencies than weekdays (aside from the Middleboro) so they're weekend ridership drop is the worst of all.
View attachment 54324

Great analysis!

One note about Stoughton: I think it was mentioned here that a lot of Canton Center's weekday ridership shifts to Canton Junction on weekends. IIRC, this may even have resulted in Canton Junction having higher weekend ridership than weekday; but even if I misremembered, it's still absolute top tier systemwide in the weekend-to-weekday ratio. (Note that the two Canton stations combined would be one of the most popular stations on the system.) This would possibly support Stoughton service in weekends.

Alternatively, I'd say even just doubling the number of Providence trains can be worthwhile on weekends. Trains every hour connecting two of the biggest cities in New England, both of which can be popular entertainment destinations of their own (not just employment), isn't too much to ask for.

 

[Koopzilla24]

Great analysis!

One note about Stoughton: I think it was mentioned here that a lot of Canton Center's weekday ridership shifts to Canton Junction on weekends. IIRC, this may even have resulted in Canton Junction having higher weekend ridership than weekday; but even if I misremembered, it's still absolute top tier systemwide in the weekend-to-weekday ratio. (Note that the two Canton stations combined would be one of the most popular stations on the system.) This would possibly support Stoughton service in weekends.

Alternatively, I'd say even just doubling the number of Providence trains can be worthwhile on weekends. Trains every hour connecting two of the biggest cities in New England, both of which can be popular entertainment destinations of their own (not just employment), isn't too much to ask for.

With how insanely busy the Providence Line is on weekends (420 passengers/train on weekends compared to 300/train on weekdays) doubling weekend service on the Providence Line will surely bring large ridership returns since the demand is clearly there but also make trips a little more comfortable for families or group travel common on weekends since the added capacity will come with more seat availability, until the added ridership swallows that capacity too.

Also an indicator of Providence demand:
I've taken the 6:35am Saturday NER to Providence a couple times this year ($4 ticket bought the day before. A steal.) and both times there were a healthy number of passengers taking advantage of the quick hop to Providence from Boston. There was about an entire Amfleet coach's worth of passengers and then some doing so.

 

[millerm277]

With how insanely busy the Providence Line is on weekends (420 passengers/train on weekends compared to 300/train on weekdays) doubling weekend service on the Providence Line will surely bring large ridership returns since the demand is clearly there but also make trips a little more comfortable for families or group travel common on weekends since the added capacity will come with more seat availability, until the added ridership swallows that capacity too.

Also an indicator of Providence demand:
I've taken the 6:35am Saturday NER to Providence a couple times this year ($4 ticket bought the day before. A steal.) and both times there were a healthy number of passengers taking advantage of the quick hop to Providence from Boston. There was about an entire Amfleet coach's worth of passengers and then some doing so.

I'll also add in that the no service to T.F. Green on the weekends is frustrating, and rather puzzling of a decision from both a transit + a "encouraging the use of PVD" perspective.

Airports are not substantially less busy on the weekends, and a glance at Flightradar24 suggests Saturday has ~75% of the scheduled flights of M-F and Sunday is basically in line with the average weekday. If serving the place makes any sense at all, it certainly makes nearly as much sense to serve it on the weekends, and a pretty substantial % of passengers are going to have at least one end of their trip falling on a weekend.....needing a not so cheap Uber all the way to/from the middle of Providence to actually utilize the train, is going to keep most people from considering using it.