The MBTA’s Commuter Rail network has made impressive gains in ridership over the past several years thanks to increased reliability, but a new study found the system still has work to do to attract riders.
The study, conducted by the MassINC Policy Center and TransitMatters, analyzed data from transit systems across the country and found that the MBTA’s Commuter Rail is the only network to come close to recovering to pre-pandemic ridership numbers. The latest figures show that the T’s Commuter Rail is at roughly 90% of pre-pandemic ridership, while other major commuter rail systems in the United States have peaked at just 70%.
“This signals a real shift,” said Caitlin Allen-Connelly, executive director of TransitMatters. “Our Commuter Rail service is a success story in terms of ridership rebound compared to our peer agencies.”
According to the report, the Commuter Rail’s ridership bump can be traced back to 2020, when the MBTA began spreading the system’s schedule out, making sure that passengers traveling in the middle of the day did not encounter lengthy gaps between trains. The study also attributes increased ridership to clearer schedules and new fare options, such as the system’s $10 weekend fare and the income-eligible reduced fare program.
As a result of these initiatives, the study argues, the Commuter Rail has seen striking jumps in the number of riders who are low-income, those who don’t own cars and people making non-work trips.
The report found low-income passengers now make up more than one-third of Commuter Rail riders, up from just 7% when surveys were conducted prior to the pandemic. Similarly, nearly a quarter of passengers don’t have a vehicle in their household, up from 5%. And roughly half of today’s riders are traveling for reasons other than work, roughly five times as many as before.
“The T deserves a lot of credit for the work that they’ve done,” Allen-Connelly said, “as does Keolis,” the private company contracted by the MBTA to operate the commuter rail system. “The T has really been putting in place better service and responding to riders’ needs.”
Still, Allen-Connelly notes that there is ample opportunity for even greater ridership gains in the years ahead. According to the study, the system has the capacity to accommodate 400,000 additional riders every weekday, a 400% increase over current volumes.
“The MBTA will never fill every seat on every train,” Ben Forman, director of the MassINC Policy Center, said in a written statement. “But it is important to recognize that this existing infrastructure has the potential to deliver so much more mobility if we price it accordingly. Serving Gateway City residents is especially important if we want to generate equitable economic development.”
In order to encourage more ridership, the report recommends cutting off-peak and reverse-commute fares in half, while also investing in greater frequency and reliability.
“There would be a cost to this,” Allen-Connelly said. “But it would lead to having more riders off the road.”
She argues that in a region notorious for its gridlock traffic, where a recent report found that drivers are losing a combined $3 billion in productivity to congestion, anything that gets people off of streets and into trains would be worth it.
