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From page 1... ... TRANSIT COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM Sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration August 2016 Responsible Senior Program Officer: Gwen Chisholm-Smith C O N T E N T S Chapter 1 Introduction, 1 Objective, 1 Organization, 2 Chapter 2 Overview, 2 Identification of Commuter Rail Systems, 2 History of Commuter Rail in the United States and Canada, 3 Scale of Operations, 10 Chapter 3 Regulatory Environment for Commuter Rail in the United States, 11 FRA, 11 FTA, 13 STB, 15 Related Topics, 15 Chapter 4 Regulatory Environment for Commuter Rail in Canada, 21 Overview, 21 Regulatory Framework, 21 Safety Regulation, 22 Chapter 5 Contracting Commuter Rail, 22 Agency-Operated Services, 23 Bundled Contracted Services, 23 Unbundled Contracted Services, 25 Mixed-Agency-Operated and Contracted Services, 25 Profiles for Commuter Rail Systems, 25 References, 26 CONTRaCTINg COmmUTER RaIl SERvICES This digest presents the results of TCRP Project G-14, "Contracting Commuter Rail Services." The research was conducted by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute in association with ESH Consult; James Stoetzel; and Shelly Brown Associates, LLC. Research Results Digest 112 CHaPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Commuter rail service commonly refers to passenger trains operated to carry riders living in suburban areas to and from work in city centers. Read the entire page →
From page 2... ... 2Identification of Commuter Rail Systems As late as the early 1980s, only a handful of U.S. cities were served by commuter rail. Read the entire page →
From page 3... ... 3rail service in the early 1960s in the form of direct operating grants or purchase of service agreements. These early agreements between railroad operators and public agencies were simply exchanges of money for the continued commuter rail service, often for a set period of time. Read the entire page →
From page 4... ... 4the Boston & Maine Railroad (B&M) entered into a purchase of service agreement that stipulated that B&M would continue to operate commuter services to and from the North Station in Boston, and MBTA would pay B&M the annual operating loss (Wilcock and Stoetzel 2013) Read the entire page →
From page 5... ... 5organization as soon as possible. In addition to the freight services that Conrail took over, the entity also inherited commuter rail operations in five cities/regions previously operated by the railroads that became part of Conrail. Read the entire page →
From page 6... ... 6The three legacy lines (PATH, MBTA, and LIRR) had all been publicly owned prior to NRSA (Brock and Souleyrette 2013, Wilcock and Stoetzel 2013) Read the entire page →
From page 7... ... 7• MARC Train Service Commuter rail service from Maryland to Union Station in Washington, DC, has operated since the 1830s on the Camden Line, and since the mid to late 1800s on the Penn and Brunswick Lines. The Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) Read the entire page →
From page 8... ... 8the Montreal Urban Community Transit Commission, which continues to oversee Montreal's Metro (a rubber-tired, underground rail system) and bus routes. Read the entire page →
From page 9... ... 9town Dallas and Fort Worth, TX. The Fort Worth Transportation Authority (FWTA) Read the entire page →
From page 10... ... 10 Airport and Union Station. Two additional rail lines will open in 2016 and a fourth in 2018. Read the entire page →
From page 11... ... 11 expense as reported to the 2014 National Transit Database (NTD) Read the entire page →
From page 12... ... 12 gress considers a particular service to be commuter rail (i.e., defined as such in NRSA, where Congress listed specific commuter authorities) or if the operation has the following characteristics: • The system serves an urban area, its suburbs, and more distant outlying communities in the greater metropolitan area. Read the entire page →
From page 13... ... 13 Recent Legislation Recent national legislation that addresses the regulatory role and responsibilities of FRA include the following acts. Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008. Read the entire page →
From page 14... ... 14 • Environmental Protections • Energy Conservation • State Management and Monitoring Systems • Charter Service • School Bus Operations • Public Transportation Safety Program • Motor Carrier Safety • Safe Operation of Motor Vehicles • Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) FTA's Regulatory Jurisdiction for Safety of Public Transportation Prior to the 2012 passage of the federal authorization bill to fund surface transportation, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) Read the entire page →
From page 15... ... 15 STB The primary role of STB is to provide economic oversight of the nation's rail system. STB, which is bipartisan and independent, has regulatory jurisdiction over the following areas: • Railroad rate reasonableness • Mergers • Line acquisitions • New rail line construction • Abandonments of existing rail lines • Conversion of rail rights-of-way into hiking and biking trails (Elliott et al. Read the entire page →
From page 16... ... 16 reports with FRA. In support of this change, FRA agreed to share its commuter rail safety data with FTA for analysis. Read the entire page →
From page 17... ... 17 Railroad Retirement Tax Act. The first two of these acts are administered by the Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) Read the entire page →
From page 18... ... 18 The following section summarizes the guidance contained in these two reports. Read the entire page →
From page 19... ... 19 employed by transit agencies or explicitly in contractual agreements. The following implicit strategies, outlined in NCHRP Report 657: Guidebook for Implementing Passenger Rail Service on Shared Passenger and Freight Corridors, provide general strategies for transit authorities to implement in order to increase service quality: • The transit authority should monitor service quality in real time and be ready to take action in case of a one-time or chronic service problem. Read the entire page →
From page 20... ... 20 formance (generally measured in terms of on-time performance) ; safety (generally measured in terms of accidents, injuries, incidents, regulatory violations, etc.) Read the entire page →
From page 21... ... 21 by federal law. These include the two major freightcarrying railways (CN and CP) Read the entire page →
From page 22... ... 22 provinces, and the commuter operations in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver fall under the jurisdiction of Transport Canada. Transport Canada has regulatory oversight over rail safety and rigorously enforces legislation, rules, and regulations, such as those related to train securement, speed limits, and track and equipment inspection and maintenance. Read the entire page →
From page 23... ... 23 entity formed to specifically provide a service or services) agency-Operated Services Six legacy commuter rail agencies and one New Start directly operate and maintain all major functions: • PATH • LIRR • Metro-North • NJ TRANSIT • SEPTA • South Shore Line • SMART (located in Marin and Sonoma counties, CA, and opening in 2016) Read the entire page →
From page 24... ... 24 Table 4 Commuter Rail Systems – Service Delivery Models System Service Area Year Train Operations Maintenance of Way Maintenance of Equipment Agency-Operated and Maintained Commuter Rail (6) 1 1 New Start 2016 PATH NYC – New Jersey 1921 LIRR NYC – Long Island, NY 1966 Metro-North NYC – North and East NY 1983 NJ TRANSIT New Jersey – NYC 1983 SEPTA Philadelphia, PA 1983 South Shore Line South Bend, IN – Chicago, IL 1989 SMART Sonoma – Marin Counties, CA 2016 Contracted Commuter Rail – Bundled (11) Read the entire page →
From page 25... ... 25 • Metra • FrontRunner • Northstar • WES Each agency directly operates some part of the operation and contracts other functions in unbundled agreements with private companies or service agreements with the host railroad. • The operating subsidiary for Metra owns and/or operates 7 of 11 commuter rail lines. Read the entire page →
From page 26... ... 26 versity of Kentucky, Kentucky Transportation Center, Lexington, KY. Elliott, Daniel R., Ann D Read the entire page →
From page 27... ... 27 Transport Canada (2011) Annual Report and 2014 Addendum, accessed October 4, 2015. Read the entire page →
From page 28... ... These digests are issued in order to increase awareness of research results emanating from projects in the Cooperative Research Programs (CRP) Read the entire page →

From page 1...

... TRANSIT COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM Sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration August 2016 Responsible Senior Program Officer: Gwen Chisholm-Smith C O N T E N T S Chapter 1 Introduction, 1 Objective, 1 Organization, 2 Chapter 2 Overview, 2 Identification of Commuter Rail Systems, 2 History of Commuter Rail in the United States and Canada, 3 Scale of Operations, 10 Chapter 3 Regulatory Environment for Commuter Rail in the United States, 11 FRA, 11 FTA, 13 STB, 15 Related Topics, 15 Chapter 4 Regulatory Environment for Commuter Rail in Canada, 21 Overview, 21 Regulatory Framework, 21 Safety Regulation, 22 Chapter 5 Contracting Commuter Rail, 22 Agency-Operated Services, 23 Bundled Contracted Services, 23 Unbundled Contracted Services, 25 Mixed-Agency-Operated and Contracted Services, 25 Profiles for Commuter Rail Systems, 25 References, 26 CONTRaCTINg COmmUTER RaIl SERvICES This digest presents the results of TCRP Project G-14, "Contracting Commuter Rail Services." The research was conducted by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute in association with ESH Consult; James Stoetzel; and Shelly Brown Associates, LLC. Research Results Digest 112 CHaPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Commuter rail service commonly refers to passenger trains operated to carry riders living in suburban areas to and from work in city centers.