Last year, Caltrain introduced its new electric trains for its service running from San Francisco to San Jose — cutting travel times, largely due to their ability to accelerate and decelerate faster than diesel locomotives. Fifty-one of Caltrain's 77 miles of track are now electrified.
“We were very fortunate to have a modernization program that was launching exactly when we were starting to see customers come back,” Michelle Bouchard, executive director of Caltrain, said Monday during a webinar on the opportunities and challenges facing commuter rail. The event was hosted by the Transportation Research Board (TRB) at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
“But at the end of the day, you know, we can’t just be what we were before,” Bouchard said, recalling the five years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which upended travel and work patterns, disrupting decades-old public transit systems.
“We could just exist, and then customers would take us because it was too painful to take the highways. We really have to earn every single customer, one butt at a time,” she said.
Commuter rail systems — there are 28 serving metro regions nationwide, according to Shirly — were some of the transit systems hardest hit by the pandemic. For example, in March 2020, when travel all but shut down across the Bay Area, ridership on Caltrain fell to only 3 percent of what it was just a month earlier, officials said. Traditionally, these systems largely serve white collar workers traveling to and from downtown offices. The pandemic forced agencies to rethink this model, by responding to increased demand during midday periods, as well as nights and weekends.
“Midday, evening, and especially weekend markets, in 2024 are strong, often almost as large if not larger than their weekday peak markets,” said Leo Shirky, a technical consultant with DB E.C.O. North America, during the panel. Shirky was one of the contributors to the 2025 TRB report The Future of Commuter Rail in North America.
The recovery of commuter rail has been “haphazard,” Shirky said, noting some systems are only 50 percent recovered, while others are more than 100 percent recovered.
Caltrain has credited its recovered ridership to faster service, $1 youth fares and increased service on weekends, Bouchard said.
“We’re building a long-term strategy for those folks to continue to take the train as they go to college on the Peninsula, and as they get work on the Peninsula. But the second thing is, they’re also bringing adults with them. And so that’s additional fares in the fare box,” she said.
Ticket revenue is often a closely watched metric by commuter rail officials. A large portion of system operating budgets comes directly from the fare box. At Caltrain, 70 percent of revenue comes from tickets, Bouchard said.
In the Philadelphia region, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) operates its Regional Rail commuter service, which is also in the midst of restructuring service for shifting periods of peak demand, but also for attracting new riders. Regional Rail adopted a new strategic plan in 2021, said Jody Holton, SEPTA assistant general manager for planning and strategy.
“We understood at the time that we weren’t going to travel in the same way across our region,” she said during the panel. “Commuter travel was going to change, and at that time, we were just determining how to forecast that and see how it would play out. Ultimately, we found that there is demand for 15-minute service on a number of our branch lines.”
A study to better understand the “addressable market” — which could be understood as who are the potential riders for SEPTA’s Regional Rail — identified an increased demand for service during midday.
“What are those trips that we could serve on regional rail that aren’t being served today?” is the way Holton described a central question SEPTA has been aiming to answer.
Last year, the rail provider expanded weekend service, which Holton pointed to as a notable success.
“So we really have a great Saturday travel market,” she said. “It’s become like the sixth day of the week for us.”
But ultimately, the message for commuter rail operators is, understand ridership needs, and provide service that is frequent and affordable.
“The whole host of situations that COVID brought about was very humbling for our railroad to understand,” Bouchard said. “And if we’re going to grow back stronger, we really do need to diversify markets.”
