Some very good news from Rail Passengers Association’s Research & Analysis staff: a paper describing our new approach to forecasting passenger-rail ridership has been accepted for presentation at the Transportation Research Board’s 2027 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
TRB’s Annual Meeting, held January 10–14, is one of the transportation research community’s premier gatherings, bringing together thousands of researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and industry professionals from around the world. The Transportation Research Board is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent analysis and advice on science, engineering, medicine, and public policy.
The Rail Passengers paper describes a new station-level ridership model developed by our research team, which is part of your professional staff here at the Association. Led by Dr. John Christoph, the other team members as co-authors on the paper are Eric Siegel, Jordan Hyatt, Andrew Bohrer, Nolan Buonomano, Joe Aiello, and Tanner Cutler.
Rather than simply asking where existing riders travel, the model examines how much ridership a station and its surrounding market should be capable of generating. It builds data-derived station catchment areas and considers factors including population and demographics, service frequency, destinations served, and connections to other routes.
The team tested dozens of potential variables, using statistical techniques to identify the factors that best explain observed passenger behavior. In validation testing, the resulting model achieved a correlation of roughly 0.85 with actual ridership, with average prediction error of about 32 percent.
The work represents the latest step in a years-long Rail Passengers effort to build better tools for understanding the potential of proposed passenger-rail services, tools we are already putting to work in studies around the country.
Having that work selected for presentation at TRB is also a welcome recognition of something we’re especially proud of: Rail Passengers isn’t just making the case for more and better passenger trains. Our Research & Analysis team is developing original tools and methods to help planners, policymakers, and communities understand where those trains can succeed.
Congratulations to the entire team! We look forward to sharing their work with the transportation research community in January.