Rail

Rail Transit Ridership Changes in COVID-19: Lessons for Station Area Planning in California

Li, Meiqing
Daniel Rodriguez
Pike, Susie
McNally, Michael
2025

Emerging evidence suggests that the recovery of transit ridership post-COVID has been uneven, especially for rail transit. This study aims to understand the station area land use, built form, and transit network characteristics that explain station-level changes in transit ridership pre- and post-COVID, and explores the degree to which those changes are rail transit-specific or the result of overall changes in visits to station areas. Specifically, we examine ridership changes between 2019 and 2021 for 242 rail stations belonging to the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), San Diego Metropolitan...

Futures Market for Demand Responsive Travel Pricing

Fournier, Nicholas
Anthony Patire
Alexander Skabardonis
2023

While transportation funding can be collected in a variety of direct (e.g., fares, tolls, and gas taxes) or indirect (e.g., property and sales tax) ways, dynamic demand responsive pricing not only collects revenue but also incentivizes travelers to avoid peak-demand periods, thus utilizing infrastructure capacity more efficiently. Unfortunately, the demand response to price changes, called the price elasticity of demand, is generally greater for longer-term travel planning (e.g., air and rail travel) than it is for more atomized short-term planning (e.g., highway tolls and transit fares)....

California strikes deal to temporarily protect $4B in bullet train funds, but project’s future still uncertain

August 12, 2025

Capital Public Radio_Elkind

ITS affiliate, Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, discussed California strikes deal to temporarily...

Light Rail Accident Involvement and Severity

Chira-Chavala, T.
Coifman, B.
Porter, C.
Hansen, M.
1996

Accident causation and accident severity analyses for a light rail transit system are presented, with a view to providing input for the identification and development of accident and severity countermeasures. Accident reports of the Santa Clara County Transit Authority were used in both analyses. In the accident causation analysis, patterns of critical events for various types of light rail accident involvement were determined. The accident severity model is a binary logit model expressing the probability of injury accident as a function of speeds before collision of both the light rail...

SPRINTER Rail: Grade Crossing/Traffic Signal Optimization Study

Wu, Guoyuan
Li, Irene
Zhang, Wei-Bin
Johnston, Scott
Li, Meng
Zhou, Kun
2009

The second phase of this project further investigates impacts to local traffic operations at intersections adjacent to signal preemption by SPRINTER commuter trains and comes up with countermeasures that not only minimize such impacts but also take into account the traffic signal coordination. An extended traffic signal optimization model has been developed to minimize overall traffic delays and the weighted width of “green band” along several coordinated traffic signals around the grade crossings. Based on the train’s movement detection at grade crossings and the waiting queue estimation...

Integrating Aviation and Passenger Rail Planning

Resource Systems Group, Inc.
Airport Cooperative Research Program
Transportation Research Board
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
2015

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 118: Integrating Aviation and Passenger Rail Planning explores planning options, funding challenges, and potential actions to improve integration of rail services with airports, particularly in congested corridors.

Are US political processes well set up to get California’s high-speed rail built quickly, efficiently?

July 30, 2025

Global Times_Elkind

ITS affiliate, Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, discussed Are US political processes well set up to get California’s high-speed rail built quickly, efficiently? with the Global Times:...

Trump’s Proposed Cut Would Deal Serious Setback to California High-Speed Rail

June 7, 2025

New York Times _ Elkind

ITS affiliate, Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, discussed Trump’s Proposed

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California Trains Connected

Kanafani, Adib
Benouar, Hamed
Chiou, Bensen
Ygnace, Jean-Luc
Yamada, Kazuhiro
Dankberg, Adam
2006

This project is to assist the Capitol Corridor Joint Power Authority (CCIPA) and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) assemble a decision framework for selecting wireless Internet access on behalf of customers riding the three California State sponsored Intercity Rail Services. To accomplish this objective, we researched the state of worldwide deployment of service based on the wireless technologies, such as wireless fidelity (WiFi) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access(WiMAX), conducted a survey of the WiFi service at San Francisco Airport, and examined the...

Urban Densities and Transit: A Multi-Dimensional Perspective

Cervero, Robert
Guerra, Erick
2011

This paper investigates the relationship between transit and urban densities in the United States. An analysis of light rail systems finds that a residential density of about 30 people per gross acre near stations is needed to in order to make them among the top 25 percent of rail transit investments in terms of cost effectiveness; for heavy rail systems, the density is 45 people per gross acre. Increasing density around stations would greatly increase ridership, particularly when jobs are located within one-quarter mile of the stations and housing is located within one-half mile....