provided by Eugene K. Skoropowski, Managing Director, Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority
We have received the ridership and revenue results for June 2007 from Amtrak, and, once again, the Capitol Corridor is setting records.
After 9 months in our fiscal year, we continue to AVERAGE a +13% growth rate in riders and more than +21% growth in revenue. Virtually the only thing inhibiting greater growth, particularly in peak weekday travel periods, is availability of more coaches to add to existing trains.
Caltrans is on the ball here, and the first two rebuilt/leased-to-Caltrans-from-Amtrak Superliner coaches will arrive in Oakland on Tuesday July 17. These cars were formerly out-of-service Amtrak Superliners that now have been repaired and modified by Amtrak at Caltrans expense, and leased to Caltrans for 6 years. The interior of the cars has been redone, and the cars are painted in California colors. There may be several more coming to Northern California in the coming months, pending Amtrak-Caltrans agreement. While these added cars will not be arriving in the numbers we will need, every additional coach car helps us accommodate more passengers and satisfy some of the increasing demand for our service.
Since these Amtrak Superliner cars do not have automatic doors, there will likely be only one such car assigned per train, so that boarding/detraining will be available on cars immediately adjacent to the “Super-Caltransliner” car, similarly to how a California Diner works in a train consist. Kudos to Caltrans Division of Rail staff for coming up with this innovative interim measure for added seats until an additional new fleet of California Cars can be ordered and delivered. These Amtrak Superliner cars will really help.
Capitol Corridor:
â— 124,813 passengers +13.1% vs. FY06 and a record for the month!
â— $1,581,335 ticket revenue +17.4% vs. FY06
June 2006 had just over 110,000 riders, so the growth in June to 2007 to nearly 125,000 riders is consistent with the prior 8 months. Total riders for the past 12 months is now 1,398,829, meaning that we should be well above 1.4 million passengers by the end of the fiscal year. With only modest growth in the coming year, we should exceed 1.5 million by September 30, 2008.
Revenue is now +21.3% above last year, with revenue-to-cost ratio holding at just above 45%. We expect that the summer revenue will push this ratio to 50% by close of the fiscal year at the end of September. On time performance improved in June to almost 81%, again, not where we need to be, but steady improvement. Union Pacific performance is now running in the high eighties (88% approximately), and mechanical failures have been at a minimum. All partners (CCJPA, Amtrak, UPRR and Caltrans) re striving to deliver a quality, reliable service on the Capitol Corridor, and the customers are responding. We look forward to a state budget package that will provide the needed capital for Caltrans Rail to initiate the procurement of additional California Cars for all three of our state-supported Amtrak-operated passenger services. We are also hopeful that some capital funds will trickle down to allow UPRR to construct some of the track improvements already designed, and these improvements will further help on-time reliability.
Pacific Surfliner:
â— 232,956 passengers +0.2% vs. FY06
â— $4,254,067 ticket revenue +5.6% vs. FY06
San Joaquins:
â— 71,988 passengers -2.4% vs. FY06
â— $2,332,025 ticket revenue -2.0% vs. FY06