Caltrain’s packed trains confirm what riders already know – more people are using the train as their primary mode of transportation.
For nearly five years, Caltrain has been experiencing uninterrupted month-to-month ridership growth on its system. During the 2015 fiscal year, which ended June 30, Caltrain carried an average weekday ridership of 58,429 passengers compared to an AWR of 37,745 passengers in the 2010 fiscal year. Caltrain also reached a record in total ridership for FY2015 carrying more than 18.5 million passengers. That total is a 54.8 percent increase from just five years ago, when Caltrain carried 12 million riders.
“Caltrain has become a vital resource for our customers and the demand for service has never been higher,” said Deputy CEO Chuck Harvey. “These historic ridership levels look like they will remain on track and Caltrain will continue to work on increasing capacity to meet this growing demand.”
Earlier in 2015, Caltrain purchased 16 used rail cars in response to the growth in demand on the railroad and significant overcrowding on many of its peak hour trains. The six-car trains have been assigned to the most popular trains in Caltrain’s peak period, but will operate during other times of the day as well.
Caltrain has already put five of the 16 cars into service, following some maintenance and minor repair and conversion work. The other 11 cars require more extensive repair work and will be rolled into service as they are ready. Additional work includes converting a number of the new cars to accommodate onboard bicycle storage. When the conversion project is complete, Caltrain will add a third bike car to Bombardier train sets bringing the total number of bike spaces available on those sets to 72. The agency hopes to begin bringing those additional bike cars online within the next year.
