Putting a Price on Regional Rail Quality: Evaluating the Value Potential Riders Place on Regional Rail Service Attributes

Public transit has suffered from chronic disinvestment despite its community-wide benefits. Post-pandemic, drastic changes in travel demand have left agencies grappling with financial stress. California’s transit ridership has generally tracked alongside national ridership trends with a substantial dip in ridership and then slow recovery, but commuter rail mode share has remained substantially lower than pre-pandemic shares. Most rail services are geared towards serving commuters; higher frequency is offered during weekdays and peak hours, ticket pricing is tailored to favor people making the same kind of trip on a regular basis, and service hours align with commuter needs. The five days-a-week commuting to work lifestyle is no more, and rail agencies serving commuters are experiencing decimated ridership that is showing no signs of bouncing back. This project uses survey research targeted towards understanding how to tailor rail services to gain new markets for regional rail services. The research team developed a stated preference (SP) experiment to understand evolving needs of commuters and non-commuters, as well as riders and potential riders. The service attributes under study include train schedule, ticket cost, station access, reliability, station amenities, and how the potential user base views rail services. Although the study will focus on the area defined by its research partner, Capitol Corridor, it is widely applicable across the country in locations with intercity, suburban, and small urban regional rail services.

• Record URL:
  • https://ncst.ucdavis.edu/project/putting-price-regional-rail-quality-evaluating-value-potential-riders-place-regional-rail

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $20,000.00
• Contract Numbers:

  DOT 69A3552348319

  DOT 69A3552344814

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  National Center for Sustainable Transportation

  University of California, Davis
  Davis, CA  United States 
• Managing Organizations:

  National Center for Sustainable Transportation

  University of California, Davis
  Davis, CA  United States 

  University of California, Davis

  1 Shields Ave
  Davis, California  United States  95616
• Project Managers:

  Cliff, Sydney

• Performing Organizations:

  National Center for Sustainable Transportation

  University of California, Davis
  Davis, CA  United States 

  University of California, Davis

  1 Shields Ave
  Davis, California  United States  95616
• Principal Investigators:

  Ahmad, Maha

• Start Date: 20260101
• Expected Completion Date: 20261231
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Commuter service; Public transit; Regional railroads; Ridership; Stated preferences; Surveys
• Geographic Terms: California
• Subject Areas: Passenger Transportation; Public Transportation; Railroads;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01989138
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: National Center for Sustainable Transportation
• Contract Numbers: DOT 69A3552348319, DOT 69A3552344814
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: May 13 2026 4:58PM