In this entry into the Integration of Rail Passenger service I am going to discuss the integration of schedules. It seems that scheduling is something that many agencies still have trouble with despite the availability of technology to help.
Lets take a look at Southern California were you have the trains of Metrolink and Amtrak plus the Coaster in the San Diego area. While there has been some talk of integrating schedules, there has been little progress in this area.
Not only should schedules be coordinated when they operate on the same section of track but connections should be designed so that a person could move from a train that came from Lancaster to the Pacific Surfliner or Metrolink’s San Bernardino service with ease. Today if you arrived on a train from Lancaster at 1:20pm, you would have a 40-minute wait for the next Amtrak Surfliner and you would be required to go into the station, wait for the lines to open and head back to the platforms.
If you want to transfer to the San Bernardino line you would have to wait an hour because your train arrived at the same time as the San Bernardino train left so connections are difficult. If you were heading to Riverside via UP you would have a 3 hour wait because the train to Riverside left 5 minutes before you arrived. If you are traveling to Santa Barbara you are really left out since you can transfer Glendale but the train from Lancaster arrives in Glendale at 1:04pm and the train for Santa Barbara left at 12:42pm. Next train will be at 3:07pm.
It is clear that the schedules are not well coordinated and are not integrated into providing convenient transfers.
The Northeast Corridor is another area where schedules should be coordinated and integrated. For example NJ Transit, Connecticut, SEPTA and other lines schedules should be integrated to provide maximum number of schedules available to the customer. For example if you are traveling to Trenton from New York the customer should be able to know that a regional train would leave on the hour, an Acela train would be leaving at the half hour and a New Jersey local would leave at fifteen after the hour. The customer should just have to decide what level of service he wants to pay for.
Integrating and coordinating schedules will be the first step toward creating a world class rail passenger service. There is many obstacles before we can start changing things and I will discuss those issues in the final entry of this series.
In the next entry I will discuss the California Thruway network and how this works into the ideas presented.
Part 1: Poor Integration History
Part 2: The Airlines-Code Sharing
Part 3: The Airlines-The Regional Carriers
Part 4: How it can be applied to rail passenger service
Part 5: Integration of Schedules
Part 6: The California Thruway: It Can Work
Part 7: The Politics that holds us back
John Dornoff is a principal in the Dornoff Consulting Group.
