Report from Gene Skoropowski, CCJPB Managing Director

We have just received the December 2007 stats from Amtrak, the third month of our FY08 federal fiscal year. For the Capitol Corridor, and indeed for all of California, the ridership and revenue numbers show continued substantial growth. The San Joaquins nudged out the Capitol Corridor for ‘top dog’ in the percentage of growth in ridership, and the Pacific Surfliner ridership also had healthy growth.

Amtrak reports for :

Capitol Corridor (December 2007):

119,507 passengers +9.0% vs. 2006, and another record for the month
$1,681,619 +13.4% vs. 2006

The on-time performance for December was 87%, a substantial improvement over the past months, and the best performance in two years. While delivered service to the customer was slightly below our standard of 90%, the Union Pacific performance reached 92% % for the first time in nearly two years, resulting in their first ‘earned incentive’ payment during that time period. Union Pacific performance has shown sustained performance improvement, incrementally getting better each month.

Although we had another record year for ridership growth on the Capitol Corridor in the prior year, we attributed much of that growth to the 25% increase in service frequency that went into effect in late August 2006. This year, we expected that the growth rate would moderate to about a 5% annual rate, but that has not happened. The first three months ridership growth is +11.5%, and revenue for the same period is +16.3%. At this rate, we will surpass the 12-month ridership mark of 1,500,000 this month (January 2008).

The revenue-to-cost ratio for December is 52.2%, and the year to date revenue-to-cost ratio is 53.3%. Again, this is the best start we have ever had to a fiscal year, for riders, for revenue, and for farebox recovery.

Pacific Surfliners (December 2007):

213,205 passengers +8.9% vs. 2006
$3,749,969 +3.8% vs. 2006

San Joaquins (December 2007):

74,045 passengers +11.3% vs. 2006
$2,536,843 +9.7% vs. 2006