Developing guidance for intercity passenger rail ridership forecasting

While the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) of the US Department of Transportation (US DOT) has extensive guidance documents on best practices for urban travel demand forecasting methodologies, the Federal Railway Administration (FRA) currently lacks corresponding guidance documents on the appropriate methodologies available for intercity passenger rail forecasting. Specifically, there is no guidance on rail ridership forecasting for Service Development Plans (SDP) that are required at the federal level to receive federal funding.

With Steer’s practical experience in intercity passenger rail travel demand forecasting in a variety of contexts in the United States and our experience writing federal guidance documents for rail services, we are ideally placed to provide practical and strategic advice to the federal government. 

How we helped

We are supporting the Federal Railroad Administration in partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in the development of a guidance document for intercity passenger rail ridership forecasting services to help facilitate the preparation of service development plans for passenger rail services spanning multiple states. The goal is to develop a stand-alone guidance on the process of performing market analysis and travel demand forecasting for intercity passenger rail in support of service development planning.

Successes and outcomes

The development of this Intercity Passenger Rail Travel Demand Forecasting Guidance document will provide transportation professionals - including practitioners and FRA project managers - practical guidance to evaluate rail projects and educate themselves on the best practices related to rail demand forecasting.