All Aboard Florida Ridership and Revenue Highlights

Continuing from my last post, here's a look at the ridership and revenue appendix to All Aboard Florida's Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

To begin with, it's a bit of a misnomer as there's no revenue information in the available summary report. Though I lack any proof, I believe that this was simply, and reasonably, redacted from the report in order to protect their commercial interests. It is a bit unfortunate however since the fare level has a rather large impact on the reasonableness of their ridership estimates.

One thing I would like to quickly address is the mystery I had with the number of passengers diverted from air travel exceeding the number of Orlando-Miami air passengers by a significant margin. As it turns out, according to the FAA on page 24, the number of Orlando-Ft. Lauderdale air passengers is nearly double that of Orlando-Miami, totaling 163,500 annual passengers. The diversion is only on the order of 60% of air passengers then which is rather more reasonable. The diversion from Amtrak is still somewhat mysterious, but may be a result of growth projections as well as possible intermodal trips from All Aboard Florida.

While the EIS refers to the 3.5 million ridership figure as coming from the most conservative ridership case, that's not strictly accurate, at least as how I'd read it. Rather, the 3.5 million comes from the base case. In their own words:

The scenario does not include potential future changes to the proposed AAF service, such as additional future station locations; and does not include consideration of future changes to the relevant transportation network that are subject to some level of uncertainty, such as impact of the growth in congestion on major highways and arterials in the market area, or the impact of potential direct connections with local transit improvements planned by local and regional agencies. (page 3)

Accounting for connections to other transit, such as SunRail and Ft. Lauderdale's streetcar; marketing initiatives; frequent rider loyalty programs; revenue yield management; and other incentives; results in a ridership forecast of up to 5.1 million in 2019, composed of 2,434,300 Orlando riders and 2,671,556 riders traveling solely within the West Palm Beach-Miami corridor. I don't believe this is an achievable ridership figure for the very simple reason that they do not have nearly enough seats to satisfy demand, which amounts to an average of 437 passengers per train every single day. Even nine-car trains are going to see frequently sold out trains in the peak periods and while some will go for cheaper off-peak trains, it's stretching the imagination to suggest that they'll manage to nearly fill each and every single one of them.

Base case 2019 market share

Congested auto travel times were accounted for in estimating station access and long-distance auto travel times. The AAF forecast is not predicated on future growth in congestion, however. This is a conservative approach as it is very likely that congestion within and between the regions will increase, making non-highway modes of travel more competitive. (Page 11)

It's also interesting to note that the impact of fuel prices upon ridership are considered to be negligible, with travel time (including station access time) and frequency being the dominant factors on ridership. A 20% increase in gasoline or air fare leads only to a 1.4% and 1.7% predicted increase in AAF ridership. On the other hand, decreasing the running time by 10% leads to a 5% increase in ridership in the West Palm Beach-Miami market and 7% overall (with a similar drop should running times increase). Similarly, large gains are expected when travel times increase for parallel modes; in the most extreme, a 20% increase in travel time due to freeway congestion (but not impeding intracity travel to stations), there is a predicted 16% ridership gain in the long distance market and 12% in the short distance.

However, the ridership summary does graphically show that putting the northern terminus at Orlando Airport is probably not the best decision. Compare the population and employment density of the Orlando station with that of the other three:

In pure numbers, there are 170,944 people living within a 5-mile radius of the West Palm Beach station (2010), 232,800 within five miles of Fort Lauderdale, 469,842 within five miles of the new Miami station, but only 58,439 within five miles of the Orlando station. Having never once yet enjoyed the drive into an airport, I would not be surprised if Orlando underperformed due to the inconvenient nature of its station. That said, it is something that should be easily fixed: SunRail's planned connection to Orlando Airport would cost $100 million to build. That's a fairly small sum in the scheme of things for All Aboard Florida and it's possible that SunRail will prove amenable to allowing trackage rights to the Amtrak station in Orlando in exchange for bankrolling the project. That's a trade that will do wonders to boost ridership figures and connectivity in Orlando while aiding both projects.

Highlights from All Aboard Florida's Draft EIS

The Federal Railroad Administration released the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for All Aboard Florida today; the following are some highlights from it.

According to a ridership and revenue forecast commissioned by Florida East Coast Industries and prepared by Louis Berger Group (LBG) for the Project, the most conservative total annual ridership would amount to approximately 3.5 million in 2019. Among the 2019 project totals, approximately 2.0 million would be short distance trips (Ft. Lauderdale – Miami, West Palm Beach – Miami, West Palm Beach – Ft. Lauderdale) and 1.5 million would be long distance trips (Orlando – Southeast Florida). Total annual ridership is predicted to exceed 4 million by year 2030. (Page S-6)

If 3.5 million is their most conservative estimate, which comes out to an average of 300 passengers per train, I'm really surprised at the lack of capacity in their trains. With one coach as first class seating, their seven car sets will only have 446 seats, 396 if one coach is a dedicated café car. I anticipate that peak trains will probably sell out fairly quickly, especially if their conservative estimates do prove to be conservative. On the other hand, it will be fairly easy for them to expand their capacity as it should be a running production line and the initial Phase 1 operations, West Palm Beach to Miami, should give them a warning as to whether their ridership estimates are significantly off in either direction.

Additionally, if there are 2.0 million trips between West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami, it's probable that a going proposition could be made simply on that traffic. Orlando nearly doubles the traffic, and is probably higher revenue traffic, but it also represents a major capital investment sink. Quite frankly, Florida should have looked at investing in this corridor a long time ago.

On page S-7, there's a summary of the construction elements involved. The Orlando extension will build six new bridges (including one for the Vehicle Maintenance Facility) while 25 bridges will be reconstructed on the existing Florida East Coast alignment, including seven between West Palm Beach and Miami.

Riders for AAF are expected to be primarily diverted from automobile modes (69 percent of forecast ridership). The Project would have the beneficial impact of removing 335,628 auto vehicle trips per year from the regional roadway network in 2016 and 1.2 million vehicles in 2019.
The proposed passenger rail service would divert 10 percent of its long‐distance riders from private inter‐city motorbus services, which totals approximately 152,600 annual bus passenger trips per year. The proposed service would divert 10 percent of its riders from the air service market, which totals approximately 152,600 annual aviation passenger trips per year. Two percent of the AAF long‐distance ridership is forecast to come from Amtrak passenger rail services. In 2019, this amounts to approximately 31,000 annual trips diverted from Amtrak which is about 4 percent of Amtrak’s 2012 ridership in South Florida. (Page S-9)

91% of ridership is expected to come via various diversions which leaves 9% for induced demand. That's a fairly low threshold to meet: in a perhaps extreme example, the Paris-Lyon LGV is credited with a 27% increase in total traffic while simultaneously rising to 72% of total mode-share, Table 1. If All Aboard Florida has significantly underestimated actual ridership, I expect induced demand to be where it has done so.

The Project would have long‐term direct economic benefits to local populations through the creation of approximately 1,100 jobs on average per year through 2021 and labor income valued at nearly $294 million through 2021. During construction, the Project would create an estimated 10,400 jobs on average per year and labor income valued at nearly $1.2 billion. Overall, the Project would realize approximately $1.2 billion to Florida’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in estimated annual economic development through 2021 and generate approximately $187 million in annual federal, state and local government tax revenue through 2021.1 Includes both direct, indirect and secondary federal, state and local government tax revenue generated from the Project (Page S-17)

The additional tax revenues that All Aboard Florida is claiming are a good reason for governments to look at investing in new and existing passenger rail corridors. Even if the service itself requires financial support, such as most state supported corridors currently require, that money can be recouped through the tax revenue that economic expansion garners, acting as a form of loss leader. That said, I take every job creation and economic impact report with quite a bit of salt.

Without further improvements to the existing I‐95 corridor, by 2035 100‐percent of the urban segments within the I‐95 corridor will be under “heavy congestion, and 55 percent of the non‐urban segments will see increased congestion” (I‐95 Corridor Coalition 2013).
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In 1991, FDOT established a limit of ten lanes (five lanes in either direction) at any location on the Florida Interstate Highway System (FIHS) (FRA 2005). This limit to capacity was further solidified in 2002 and 2003, when FDOT procedures 525‐030‐250‐f and 525‐030‐255‐c set up specific criteria for widening all roads on the FIHS. These procedures were based on 2000 legislation (Section 225.02(3) of the Florida Statutes [FS]), which establishes criteria that must be considered when determining the number of lanes on the FIHS. The criteria include consideration of multi‐modal alternatives and considerations of local comprehensive plans and approved metropolitan long range transportation plans. The procedures (FDOT 2003) note:
“Nothing in Section 335.02 (3) FS precludes a number of lanes in excess of ten lanes. However, before the Department may determine the number of lanes should be more than ten, the availability of [right‐of‐ way] (ROW), and the capacity to accommodate other modes of transportation within the existing ROW must be considered.“ (Page 2-4)

Given the ease with which All Aboard Florida will be able to expand its capacity compared to the expense of widening highways, this should guarantee significant increase in passenger numbers for years to come. The biggest obstacles which All Aboard Florida will face are probably related to its agreement with Tri-Rail requiring high fares and a limited number of stations.

Amtrak currently operates two separate train services in the Project Corridor, the Silver Star and Silver Meteor (both between New York City, New York and Miami, Florida). There are two southbound (SB) trains per day and two northbound (NB) trains per day. The travel time between Orlando and Miami on the two Amtrak services is between 5 hours, 45 minutes and 7 hours, 34 minutes. Annual ridership on these two routes was 23,300 (Louis Berger Group 2013).
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There are 244 daily and 88,900 annual passengers who travel between Orlando and Miami via airplane (Louis Berger Group 2013). (Pages 2-5-6)

I am quite confused as to how All Aboard Florida can expect to divert 31,000 passengers from Amtrak and 152,600 from air travel when these totals exceed the current passenger levels. Possibly they're considering, but not including, the passengers from Orlando to the West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale airports, but that wouldn't explain the Amtrak diversion issues. My best guess, assuming that they're not simply absurdly wrong, is that it is including trips currently made on Amtrak to cities not connected by the proposed All Aboard Florida network that will finish by intermodal connection: A bus from Orlando to Tampa for example.

Middle Section of East-West Corridor (SR 417 to SR 520)
This section is approximately 17.5 miles long. East of SR 417, Alternative A would be within the SR 528 ROW. The alignment would be comprised of mostly a single new track, but would require extensive retaining walls and bridges in order to minimize its footprint and accommodate existing and future SR 528 infrastructure. Constructing a new rail line along this corridor would require stormwater features to capture and treat the runoff. Drainage would be comingled with the existing SR 528 drainage ditch. The proposed ROW in this section is an average of 60 feet wide and would impact approximately 127 acres of land. (page 3-31)

This single track section will probably be the single greatest limitation on capacity for All Aboard Florida if it should try to expand frequencies in the future, though the lack of commuter or freight service on this line means that it shouldn't be too crippling.

The new construction and improvements proposed along the FECR Corridor are:
• Improve approximately 128.5 miles of rail line;
• Reconstruct 18 bridges;
• Add approximately 109 miles of new second track;
• Eight miles of new third track;
• Upgrade highway and pedestrian crossings; and
• Upgrade signals and grade crossings. (Page 3-35)

No comment on this, simply bringing it out as a highlight.

AAF will implement a PTC system throughout the Project, including the E‐W Corridor between Orlando and Cocoa, and the N‐S Corridor between Cocoa and Miami. The new PTC system will be interoperable between the AAF and FECR trains. AAF will outfit 55 FECR locomotives as well as its own locomotives to avoid any incompatibility issues. AAF will also expand and supplement FECR’s Digicon Digital Traffic Control systems and add a new Back Office Server to satisfy FRA’s requirements (49 CFR part 236). The system will also use the existing Parallel Infrastructure LLC’s fiber optic system within the FECR Corridor. (Page 3-41)

There is no information however on the specific type of PTC installation.

The Project’s planned service between Orlando and Miami would consist of 16 revenue round‐trips leaving hourly in each direction from 5:00 AM to 9:00 PM, with planned stops at the two intermediate stations in West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale. The last Orlando‐bound revenue train would arrive in Orlando at 12:10 AM and the last Miami‐bound revenue train would arrive in Miami at 11:10 PM.
Total scheduled travel time, including stops, is anticipated to be 3 hours, 10 minutes between the terminal stations. Station to station travel time would be 1 hour, 50 minutes from Orlando to West Palm Beach, and 1 hour, 20 minutes from West Palm Beach to Miami. (Page 3-44)

This is a good length of time for the trains to be operating, enabling both early morning and late night arrivals. While Orlando to West Palm Beach is approximately 30 minutes faster than driving (according to Google Maps at 6pm EDT), it's roughly the same speed as driving for West Palm Beach to Miami with traffic. Faster is always better, but same speed without aggravation should work quite well on its own.

The rolling stock for the Project would consist of ten train sets. Eight train sets would be required to be in concurrent operation along the AAF route to deliver regularly scheduled, hourly‐service frequency. Each train set would be comprised of two locomotives, and seven coach‐type passenger cars (two Business Cars, a Café/Economy Car, four Economy Coach Cars). In addition, AAF would procure one spare locomotive and one spare café car. The two‐locomotive arrangement provides redundant push/pull operation and would assure smooth operations up to the maximum speed of 125 mph even with an expansion of the train set to nine cars, if needed. The fleet and all facilities (stations and maintenance) are designed to accommodate expansion to nine‐car trains. (Page 3-45)

 So with two business cars the number of seats drops to 364 plus a nominal number, probably not more than 20, in the cafe car. I'll honestly be flabbergasted if they don't expand to 9 cars within a fairly short time-frame, though I'll admit that I may simply be biased by growing up with six car bilevel Surfliners as my norm.

To provide easy and safe train boarding and de‐boarding and to minimize the dwell time at stations, passengers would be distributed evenly along the platform. When AAF passengers purchase their tickets, they would select their seat, similar to the experience of airline passengers today. Along with each seat assignment, the tickets would indicate a number that coordinates with large numbering on each coach door location along the platform where the customer should wait to enter the train. These large numbers would be also affixed along the platform edge to assist with wayfinding. Uniform consistency of the AAF train sets would simplify this procedure, and give comfort to passengers that they have confirmed seating, and know exactly where it will be. These train features would support the planned dwell times at intermediate stations of 1 minute. (Page 3-45)

I'm not going to lie, my initial reaction to this was "Thank you Baby Railroading Jesus." There may be some degree of security theater nonsense going on with station design, but this is exactly how the seating and platforms ought to work and it will provide a substantial incentive, in the form of public relations, for Amtrak to fix its asinine boarding policies.

I'll be looking at the Ridership and Revenue Study Summary in a later post due to the length of this one and because I feel it ought to be considered separately.

All Aboard Florida goes with HST solution

Siemens will be building train sets with conventional locomotives and coaches for All Aboard Florida:

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today it was announced that Siemens has been selected to build the locomotives and passenger coaches for the All Aboard Florida passenger rail project that will connect South and Central Florida. All Aboard Florida and Siemens have been working together extensively on the development and design of the passenger rail cars that will transport millions of tourists, leisure and business travelers along Florida’s east coast.
This will be the first privately-owned, operated and maintained passenger rail system in the United States. When completed, it will also be one of the highest speed train routes running in the country today, operating at maximum speeds up to 125 mph. Importantly these trains, both the locomotives and the passenger coaches, will be “Made in America” at Siemens’ solar-powered rail manufacturing hub in Sacramento.
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The initial five trainset purchase to serve the Miami to West Palm Beach segment will consist of two diesel-electric locomotives, one on each end of four passenger coaches. These diesel-electric locomotives will meet the highest emissions standards set by the federal government. All Aboard Florida and Siemens plan to expand the initial trainsets to seven coaches, and purchase an additional five trainsets, concurrent with environmental approvals and additional financing for the segment from West Palm Beach to the Orlando International Airport.
The stainless steel passenger coaches, the first to be manufactured by Siemens in the United States, will be state-of-the-art, ADA compliant and designed for comfort, featuring special ergonomic seating and Wi-Fi. The trainsets will also be level boarding, which allows for the ease of boarding without steps and provides easier access for bikes, walkers, strollers and wheelchairs. The locomotives will meet the latest federal rail safety regulations, including enhanced carbody structure safety with crash energy management components.

Charger locomotive fact sheet
Intercity passenger coach fact sheet

While in a sense it is disappointing that All Aboard Florida is going for locomotives and coach cars, they'll have an impressively high power to weight ratio that should make up for it. Assuming that the coaches are similar to Siemen's Viaggio coaches, it should have a power to weight ratio of 13 horsepower per short ton. This compares favorably with the British High Speed Train (IC125) which in a similar 2+7 has a power to weight ratio of 9.1 hp/ton and even with the Class 221 Voyager DMU's 12 hp/ton (though the Class 220 has one of 14.7 hp/ton). There should be no issues with accelerating up to speed even with the added weight penalties of FRA compliance.

Where this does fall short is in passenger capacity, which is just abysmal, with Siemens quoting 50 in first class and 66 in economy class. The Viaggio Comfort is supposed to hold 60-88 and the Amfleet I holds 62 in business class and 72 in coach (previously with up to 84 seats). As I strongly suspect that Siemens is attempting to position themselves for the future Amfleet replacement order, possibly building these at cost or even a loss in order to secure the contract, it's quite odd that the quoted capacities would be so low. The likely answer is that All Aboard Florida is going with a 2+1 seating as the base level with a large amount of leg room in first class. Personally I'm not overly fond of this as I think capacity should be second only to frequency, but the agreements with Tri-Rail which have required quite high short distance fares may have resulted in a base fare level so high that it doesn't make sense to do otherwise.

On another note, with this order, and especially if Siemens wins additional orders for the Charger and these coaches from Amtrak, Sacramento is clearly becoming a center of passenger rail manufacturing in the United States. It's a position that I don't think anyone would have predicted until possibly a few years ago and is quite an enjoyable finger in the eye of those who constantly claim that California's taxes and regulations are hostile to business. It will be quite interesting to see if Siemens attempts to move into the freight market once they've established themselves in American passenger railroading, bringing a large chunk of the Midwest's heavy industry to California with it.

All Aboard Florida is taking out a rather pricey loan for construction

From Bloomberg comes the news that All Aboard Florida wants a five-year $405 million dollar loan at 12%.

While such a bond offering certainly does help show that All Aboard Florida is indeed a serious concern, that high of an interest rate is absolutely ruinous for any plans to run a profitable rail line; even at their best, the margins are not terribly high. My personal supposition is that this is intended merely to get the ball rolling while they continue to seek an RRIF loan from the Federal government; part of that loan would then be used to refinance this loan into something rather more reasonable. Without the low interest rates of a Federal RRIF loan, however, I do not believe that this line can be profitably constructed, even with the potential revenue from their hotel and convention center plans.

Silver Service and Florida Intrastate Travel

Just before Christmas, the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) delivered an early gift to those of us who like to look into the various statistics behind Amtrak with the 2013 ridership data. Being a bit of a data junkie, I immediately took a dive into it and came up with some rather surprising information regarding the distribution of travel within the state of Florida. The perception which I had always had of the two Florida serving trains, the Silver Star and the Silver Meteor, were that they were, to a significant degree, used, or intended at least, for travel from the Northeast to Florida and back again. The truth, however, is quite different: A significant and possibly the greatest single segment of travel on these two trains is actually Florida intrastate travel.

Struck by the fact that Florida city pairs, all to Tampa, were the primary city pairs for ridership on the Silver Star, I decided to look deeper into the ridership according to distance recorded by each station stop in Florida. As NARP has presented the data, the total number of boardings and alightings is given, as well as a percentage breakdown by distance, for every hundred miles of travel. I took this information, put it into a spreadsheet, and then calculated the distance to both Jacksonville, the most northerly Florida station, and the nearest out of Florida station, Jesup, Georgia. This information was either readily available from the station data sheet when Jacksonville was one of the top city pairs or was calculated from the current Silver Service timetable and the distance to the next station on the route which did have that information readily available. I then proceeded to sum up all of the boardings and alightings which existed in bands which were indisputably within the state of Florida. This method resulted in a certain degree of undercounting: There are no boardings or alightings counted from Jacksonville because Jesup lay only 92 miles away; similarly, ridership between Tampa and Jacksonville is not counted, despite being a top ridership city pair, because Jacksonville and Jesup lay within the same distance band at 203 and 299 miles distance respectively.

That conservative underestimate gives us a figure of at least 357,162 boardings and alightings, which translates into 178,581 passengers solely traveling within the state of Florida. With a combined ridership of 770,586 for the Silver Star and Silver Meteor, this means that at least 23% of their combined ridership is from travel solely within the state of Florida. In fact, at least 42.8% of all Florida traffic is within the state of Florida. Considered as a separate service, Florida certainly wouldn’t be one of the top performing routes, ranking between #36 Washington-Lynchburg and #37 Piedmont (though I suspect ridership levels on par with the Palmetto if all Florida intrastate travel were counted), but it would be a respectable performance level nonetheless, and all the more so for how poor the current service is for intrastate travel. The fastest trip between Miami and Orlando, one of the major rail corridors, is 5 hours and 3 minutes (Southbound, North is 5:45), aboard the Meteor, arriving at Orlando at 6:55pm and Miami at 1:23pm. This compares with a driving time of three and a half hours, assuming no major delays. Between Tampa and Orlando, though the train takes an extra hour than unobstructed traffic, and is probably on par with normal freeway travel before consideration of the last mile (2:03 vs 1:18), it suffers from similarly poor timings and only a single frequency in the midday and evening.

Obviously, this inclines one to think that All Aboard Florida will do quite well when they begin service, especially if future extensions are built to Jacksonville and Tampa. It also implies that the lack of an intrastate Florida train has been a severe mistake by Amtrak and the state of Florida. There is definitely a market to be served, yet all that they are offered is a pair of long distance trains which run in close succession to each other.

Certainly there appears to be a will to spend, and to spend heavily, for passenger rail service in Florida. Twice billions were appropriated for building a high speed rail service, though twice again cancelled by the governor, and currently a billion dollars, 25% from the state and 25% from local counties, is being used to purchase and construct the SunRail commuter line in Orlando. Further back, between 1982 and 1984, the state of Florida funded a once daily train between Miami and Tampa, canceling it when it failed to maintain a 60% operating ratio as required under the enabling Florida law. This funding requirement is not as ambitious as it may nowadays seem; Amtrak’s accounting systems were different back then and under them the Pacific Surfliner had farebox recovery levels of 59.1% and 76.4% for 1982-1983 and 1983-1984 respectively (page 24). It does however, seem to be an experiment foredoomed to failure by lack of frequencies and the short timeframe in which to build up ridership. At an expense of only $2.1 million over those two years, it also does seem like quite the odd penny to pinch.

The failure of the Silver Palm may have soured the state of Florida, unreasonably in my opinion, on supporting an intercity train, but it should not have done so for Amtrak. Just a few years earlier, for about the same million dollar per year cost as the Silver Palm, Amtrak added, at their own expense, an additional round trip between Los Angeles and San Diego; this despite the fact that there were already three state supported round trips on the route (and three more that were not supported by the state). Ridership in the waning months of the second year showed increases of 66% over the previous year and it is reasonable to suggest that it could have continued to increase to the point of no longer requiring a subsidy.

Indeed, I would go so far as to suggest that strong consideration should have been made to truncating one of the Silver Service trains at Jacksonville, using its equipment for a Florida intercity service, while transferring its sleepers to the surviving train. This would have freed up four sets of equipment for use within the state of Florida while consolidating certain costs for the sleepers onto just one train, possibly allowing for greater efficiencies. Given the example of the second Silver Palm, which ran from New York to Miami, it seems likely that this would have been a ridership positive move.

First running November of 1996, ridership on the Silver Palm appeared to completely cannibalize that of the Silver Star and Silver Meteor. In a year of general increase, the Silver Palm began with 188,000 riders while the Star and Meteor collectively lost 174,000 riders (page 37). With how important intrastate ridership is to the contemporary Silver Service, it’s no wonder that the Silver Palm, which had extremely poor timing for state service, did no great miracles in increasing ridership levels. Southbound it left Jacksonville at 1:56 in the morning, skipping Orlando except for a bus connection (though at that hour, it’s doubtful there would have been many riders bound for DisneyWorld), and arriving at Tampa at 6:47 in the morning. Five minutes later it left for a 12:07 arrival into Miami.  At 5pm it left Miami, reaching Tampa at 10:13, skipping Orlando once more, and arriving at Jacksonville at 2:33am.

These were terrible times for an intercity service to run and they are worsened by the fact that the Silver Palm originated in New York, making all of its southbound times somewhat theoretical and dependent on keeping good time for nine hundred miles earlier; something that those stuck relying on the Empire Builder have known is easier said than done these past few years! Unsurprisingly, when the Silver Palm, now without sleeper or diner service and renamed the Palmetto, was cut back to Savannah, Georgia, there was only a minor change in ridership upon the Silver Service routes (combined in Amtrak’s ridership figures).

Why this is so is fairly simple of course: People want to travel only a few hours and they want to do so at reasonable times of the day, with an emphasis on day. Incredibly few intercity trips of any type are taken in the middle of the night or the earliest hours of morning; even commuter traffic is relatively rare at this time. Train stops at these times will not be well patronized, as one can clearly see in Ohio. Furthermore, these trips to be taken by train, they need to be competitive with other modes of travel, such as by air. This is, of course, ignoring the ability that speed has to induce ridership; many more trips were taken between Los Angeles and Chicago when air service began than were ever taken by train between the two cities.

If we look at NARP’s data, for all long distance trains, 31.2% of the trips taken were under three hundred miles in duration and an additional 18.8% were less than 500 miles in length and only 14.9% were over a thousand miles in duration. To a certain extent the distance which passengers travel is inflated thanks to the fact that on busier corridors, such as New York to Washington and New York to Albany, the long distance trains run receive or depart only, not allowing trips to be booked within those distances and requiring passengers to use corridor trains instead.

Now, it is suggested by some that the advantage of the long distance train is that it allows multiple of these corridors to be undertaken by a single train with the added bonus of some long distance passengers to help subsidize the travel. This comes at the downside, however, of giving many communities and even important corridors poor hours of service, especially when there is a misguided focus on creating a trip which best serves an end to end run rather than the more typical and desirable journeys in between (which may involve one end, but not both). As well, as I mentioned earlier, the long distances introduce significantly more potential for major delays to passengers as well as increased risk of train cancellation due to work on a portion of the line. Foamers may joke about how they should pay extra for the “pleasure” of riding longer in a delayed train, but passengers who are stuck waiting several hours, especially with Amtrak’s employee culture of refusing to give information about delays, for the single daily train which serves them will have rather a different view of the situation.

There is also the factor of equipment utilization. The current Silver Star and Silver Meteor use, not counting maintenance reserves and protect equipment, sixteen locomotives and seventy-six cars of various types. The Pacific Surfliner uses half that figure. Could not significant gains have been made in both ridership and revenue by having only a single train from New York to Miami while the rest of the equipment provides multiple frequencies? Certainly it could not match the frequencies of the Surfliner, not when Tampa to Orlando crawls along at 25 miles per hour (though that figure could easily have been improved with improvements to the line), but several frequencies, each conducive to more riders, could reasonably have been made, even across the whole extent of the state from Miami to Jacksonville.

Now, of course, it is far too late for Amtrak to consider such a thing. All Aboard Florida has committed to providing a significant number of frequencies with significantly improved service between Miami and Orlando, predicting three million riders and nearly twice as much revenue as the Silver Star and Silver Meteor combined, despite using less equipment. But Florida is hardly the only state where intrastate ridership makes up such a major portion of total existing ridership. Even if Amtrak is unwilling to shorten or cancel long distance routes in order to create spare equipment for more frequent corridor routings, it should still examine the potential for new corridor service that the existing long distance trains have shown may be popular that it might proactively offer this service to the states. It really makes no sense for Amtrak to be so incredibly passive and to be reliant upon the various states and local communities taking the initiative every time. It should be proactively offering plans for improved service and keeping those plans updated so that a change in the political weather does not risk losing its wind before anything is capable of starting.

All Aboard Florida expects annual revenue of $145 million

Orlando Sentinel

If the All Aboard Florida train becomes a reality, the system linking Orlando International Airport with Miami would generate $145 million in fares annually by 2018, according to records filed by the company with the state.
With one-way tickets estimated in the $100 range, that would mean the Coral Gables-based company is expecting to carry nearly 1.5 million passengers between Central and South Florida within three years of its inaugural trip in 2015.
All Aboard Florida also is seeking a 99-year lease, presumably for free or a token payment, to lay down tracks along the south edge of the BeachLine Expressway, which runs from Interstate 4 south of downtown Orlando to Cocoa on the east coast.
Those details were revealed in an 81-page proposal All Aboard Florida sent the state Department of Transportation last month. The document was released to the public after the company was given the go-ahead by the state to open talks for securing the BeachLine property.

The ridership estimate down from an earlier statement of more than three million made earlier and my own estimates of about 1.8-3.2 million full fare passengers needed for break even operations. However, my own estimates involved a substantially lower fare and no food and beverage revenues. Of course, this ridership estimate may be an erroneous one made by the Orlando Sentinel from fare ranges and revenues and actual ridership higher. While station ridership projections indicate two million riders per year from three of four stations (excluding Orlando), this figure is for 2030 rather than 2018. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the documents in question.

I believe that the estimated ridership is actually above that 1.5 million figure, since it is assuming full fares for the full length of the route. Since there are intermediate stations, which will not have a hundred dollar fare, ridership should be rather higher, probably in the low two million range. Update: Another article reports an expectation of 3.29 million riders by 2018. 

Disappointing news from All Aboard Florida: Cost overruns and delays

Not even private passenger rail is immune as All Aboard Florida service is pushed back two years and $500 million more

Passenger rail line company All Aboard Florida got the go ahead Tuesday to begin negotiating a lease so it can build the northern portion of its $1.5 billion Miami to Orlando speed train.
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The speed train could begin construction as early as next year. The proposal given to the agencies includes documents that indicate its completion is slated for the end of 2015, which means it wouldn't be up and running until the following year, at the earliest. Originally, All Aboard Florida officials had projected they would be done by the end of 2014.
The train would have stations in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach and a station at Orlando airport.
The Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach stations would be completed by August 2015, while the Miami station, which is envisioned as being larger and could include commercial development, wouldn't be finished until December 2015.
All Aboard Florida is a newly launched subsidiary of parent company Florida East Coast Industries.
"This is a major step forward for the project," said Husein Cumber, Executive VP of Corporate Development for Florida East Coast Industries. "AAF will begin negotiations with FDOT to determine the lease terms that will allow our $1.5 billion private investment to move forward quickly so we can enhance Florida's transportation network and begin to create thousands of new jobs in our state.”

I'm not terribly surprised at the time delay; 2014 was always an extremely ambitious schedule and this delay lets them take more time with construction of the railcars as well. The increase in cost is disappointing, though well in keeping with American tendencies towards 50% overruns. My suspicion is that cities are asking for more grade separations, improvements, or other traffic improvements in connection with the stations than was initially budgeted for.

Minor obstacles and interesting information for All Aboard Florida

All Aboard Florida is seeking no or low cost land leases from three government agencies and a Church of Latter Day Saints owned ranch in order to connect from Cocoa Beach to Orlando International Airport.

I doubt that this will be any sort of issue, though I suspect that the cost for the ranch land will be rather pricey. A couple of interesting tidbits from the article:

A stop for Cocoa also would be opposed by the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority, one of the four property owners in talks with All Aboard Florida. The others are the state, the airport and the Mormon Church.
The expressway authority owns much of the BeachLine Expressway, where the right of way is the most logical place for the train to lay tracks. The state also owns parts of the road.
A depot in Cocoa could end up costing the expressway money because it could siphon toll-paying motorists off the road and onto the train, said agency director Max Crumit. That likely would be a deal breaker between the authority and the train, he said.
"It would be a huge competitor," Crumit said.

I'm actually somewhat surprised that it would be seen as a major competitor to the BeachLine Expressway. It's only about forty miles and with a somewhat inconvenient origin at the airport, I wouldn't expect to see much ridership between Cocoa Beach and Orlando.

More interesting is the airport station infrastructure.

Discussions with the airport have been going slower than anticipated. Both sides originally set out to reach an agreement within 60 days. That had to be extended another two months at an OIA board meeting two weeks ago.
Airport director Phil Brown blamed "lots of complicated issues, but nothing in particular" for the deal not coming together. Rinaldi said there was "no particular holdup — just a reflection of time needed."
OIA is being asked to help pay for a garage and depot for the train that would cost more than $210 million. About 80 percent of that would be for a 3,500-space garage. But who pays for what part of that bill has not been determined.
The airport also would be responsible for building a mile-long elevated monorail to serve the station at a cost of $181.4 million. Roads and other infrastructure costs of about $78 million would fall to OIA, too.

All Aboard Florida might not be taking direct subsidies from the government, but that's a quarter billion dollars in investment by a public agency simply for connections, not counting the additional costs that Orlando Airport might bear the burden of for the parking and station itself. Such connectivity costs are probably a major reason why we don't see private investment in passenger rail, with this notable exception, since they greatly increase the cost of low and higher speed rail systems and diminish the value of using existing infrastructure.

The monorail connection to the airport has one obvious benefit in that it would allow for an extremely simple codeshare agreement between national carriers and All Aboard Florida. Given the consolidation and cutback trend in the American airline industry, I think it fairly likely that, with higher speed rail connecting Florida, Orlando will become the hub airport and siphon a good deal of traffic away from the others. There is, however, the potential downside of having security theater thanks to the connection; hopefully the AAF leadership will avoid it entirely.

An interesting All Aboard Florida infographic

From the Sun Sentinel comes this infographic:

I am somewhat concerned by their ability to make the projected 3 hours, 3 minutes time frame from Orlando to Miami with 30% of their route, everything from West Palm Beach south, restricted to no more than 79mph while also using a slow accelerating diesel locomotive hauled consist. It is doable, of course, but it does require rather greater average speeds on the remainder of the route. With speeds capped at 79mph, it also means that it will not be car competitive on that section of the route. It probably won't amount to a major loss in passenger traffic, but every seat filled helps the bottom line.

I must admit to being perplexed at AAF's insistence on only serving Orlando at the airport. Connecting to the Orlando train station is a simple matter of extending for another seven miles along Route 528 and building a crossover to what I believe is CSX's line and running north for another eight miles of mostly single track. The marginal cost, even of double tracking those eight miles, is fairly minor in the grand scheme of things and it's difficult to believe that the benefits would not exceed the costs.

FEC going ahead with All Aboard Florida

Via Stephen Smith comes word that All Aboard Florida is going ahead:

A Miami real estate and transportation company announced Wednesday that it plans to go ahead with a $1 billion project to build a privately run passenger train service between Miami and Orlando to begin operations by the end of 2014.
Florida East Coast Industries said its "All Aboard Florida" project is financially viable without any need for federal and state grants or subsidies.
"After completing our due diligence we have decided to go through with it," said Husein Cumber, vice president of corporate development at Florida East Coast Railway, which operates the company's existing freight line.
Construction would begin in early 2013, Cumber said, and when completed the new service would be the only privately run, non-subsidized passenger rail link between two major cities in the United States. A similar private scheme has been proposed in Texas to link Houston and Dallas.
Amtrak, the government-owned national rail corporation, currently offers a twice daily service between Miami and Orlando, taking five to seven hours.
The announcement comes after Florida Governor Rick Scott rejected federal funding in 2011 for a high-speed rail service linking Tampa, Orlando and Miami, saying the state could not afford it.
The new service is designed for tourists and business travelers and would link two of Florida's major urban centers, Cumber told members of the Beacon Council, a public-private partnership to promote business development in Miami-Dade County.
The $1 billion cost includes a set of 10 diesel-powered trains with a 400-seat capacity offering an hourly service with First-class and Business-class seating, gourmet dining and Wi-Fi, as well as new tracks and stations in downtown Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and the Orlando airport.
The trains would make the journey in 3 hours 3 minutes traveling at speeds of up to 110 mph at a "cost competitive" price compared to the cheapest round-trip airfare of $140-160 or the roughly $120 cost of car travel, Cumber said.

Given the recent issues with Amtrak's food and beverage service, it will be an interesting comparison to see if they can make a profit on their gourmet dining service here or whether it will function as a loss leader here. My expectation is that it will move away from gourmet dining towards a more casual sit down atmosphere, such as Ruby's Diner is out west.

While I don't believe that the $120 cost of car travel is accurate, I believe that's the rather flawed AAA methodology rather than a more appropriate incidental cost, more than likely you'll see ticket prices in that range. With a market of 50 million annual travelers stated later in the article, this only has to be as competitive with driving as the Acela is with flying. Perceived social class for business travel, time advantage against driving, and the substantial number of tourists for whom the costs of a rental car must be added to the cost of driving should all result in a healthy amount of patronage and a high occupancy rate. Earlier I estimated it would need about three million trips to break even; with 50 million annual trips, that's only a six percent marketshare and I think that's easily reachable with a service that is substantially faster than automobile travel such as this.

All Aboard Florida wants to average 100mph?

So says this article that they host on their website:

The All Aboard trains would run on 200 miles of existing tracks from Miami to Cocoa, and then on 40 miles of new track to Orlando. Christine Barney, CEO and managing partner of RBB Public Relations in Coral Gables and an FECI spokeswoman, has said that several routes are under consideration for the 40-mile section.
Eventually, the system could be expanded with connections to Tampa and Jacksonville.
Barney said the goal is for the trains to average 100mph, with speeds generally faster in rural areas than in urban areas.

I really do hope that this was either a misquotation or a misspeak, because it really blows their credibility out of the water otherwise. Without electrification, multiple units, and a high power to weight ratio, that's not a doable proposition. Since it would entail shaving half an hour off of the schedule that's been talked about before (which itself may be somewhat optimistic), I do believe that this was a mistake on someone's part.

FEC intends to develop Miami station as a destination

South Florida Business Journal

Florida East Coast Industries wants to develop all of the nine acres it owns in downtown Miami as part of its plan to create a Grand Central Station for passenger service from Miami to Orlando.

Husein Cumber, who is leading the All Aboard Florida passenger line effort for FECI, told the Miami Commission Thursday morning that FECI wants to turn the site into a “destination” that could include everything from offices to residences.

“Everything is on the table,” he told commissioners.

A project of that size would rival Brickell CitiCentre in terms of acreage, but would be smaller than the more than 30 acres Genting Group has accumulated for a casino and related development at the current site of the Miami Herald and Omni Center.

He likened the commercial possibilities to Paddington Station in London, which has hotels and other amenities.

Cumber told the Business Journal the project might need to be phased in response to demand, but the intent is to develop the entire parcel, which is currently surface parking lots on the west side of downtown.

Also mentioned is construction starting next year, a decision on the cars within the next 60 days, and an incredibly vague price point between $60 and $400.

I'm not terribly surprised of course. Vertical integration such as this is vital for passenger rail: not only are you making money on both ends, but you also drive ridership through the simplest of all solutions to the Last Mile problem: eliminating it entirely. This particular location is also conveniently connected to the hub of Miami public transit for rail, people mover, and bus, which makes any hotel or office accommodations more attractive and with greater rents.

The one year of construction prior to operation makes it fairly certain in my opinion that initial construction will consist of platforms and an Amshack at their proposed stops (including Cocoa Beach rather than Orlando due to lack of present connection) along with some track work for any slow zones. This will initially hurt them, of course, but demonstrated ridership should boost their ability to raise capital for the remainder of construction, both of the rail line and the property development. A few pennies lost now in operating costs will save dollars down the line in interest payments.

GDOT finds HSR from Atlanta to Jacksonville feasible

From Florida Times-Union:

Running high-speed, passenger rail lines between Atlanta and Jacksonville, Louisville and Birmingham is economically feasible, according to a consultant’s study presented Wednesday to the State Transportation Board.
The Jacksonville line should be built in two phases, first to Savannah, and then to the Northeast Florida city, consultant HNTB recommended in its study. Possible stations along the route would include Griffin, Macon, Savannah and Brunswick. The feasibility study was the first of many long steps in setting the final course of the train routes and securing funding.
The three routes were studied after an earlier study showed the feasibility of a route from Atlanta to Charlotte. That project is now in the stage of estimating the environmental impact of possible paths.
Construction of any of the lines is likely to be many years in the future. But the Obama administration has made high-speed passenger rail a priority and provided funds for exploring routes.
Fares between Atlanta and Jacksonville would range between $119.41 and $152.24. Construction would cost from $5 billion to $16 billion, or $11.5 million to $41 million for each mile. That compared to $54 million per mile as the top range of the estimate on the Atlanta-to-Birmingham route.

The last two paragraphs lead me to believe that there's a better degree of fiscal sanity and proper planning involved than has been evident with CAHSR. Advertisements like a $55 fare from Los Angeles to San Francisco, when retracted soon after the passage of Prop 1A, and construction estimates which similarly mushroomed in size did grave harm to the public's support for the program and will delay it severely.

Running it into Jacksonville means a connection with All Aboard Florida (for whom Congressman Mica is attempting to get red tape fast cut). If this project does get a roll on, I would not be surprised to see AAF electrifying and otherwise upgrading their line from Jacksonville to Miami in order to run through service as well as financially contribute to the construction of the line. With a proposed northern terminus in Louisville, it's not past the imagination to believe a connection might be made to the proposed Midwest HSR network in Cincinnati, leading to a 2,000 mile long high speed rail line stretching through almost every environment and terrain America has to offer from Minneapolis to Miami.

Politically, of course, the feasibility is another story entirely. I'm not familiar with the state level politics in the South, so I can't really say as to how likely they are to get this going (although interstate cooperation never bodes well). If AAF is perceived to be a success after it opens in 2014, I think high speed rail in the South stands a good chance of gaining a sufficiency of political support. If so, that opens the door to more Federal funding for CAHSR and Midwest HSR as a quid pro quo with their respective state delegations.

A PDF of the presentation visuals can be found here. Unfortunately it isn't one of the more detail filled examples.