New Start Commuter Rail Feasibility Studies

On behalf of numerous clients, we conducted pre-feasibility and feasibility studies on designated rail corridors of starting or reinstating commuter rail service.  Typically a project would include:

1. desktop exercise in ridership and revenue forecasting based on U.S. Census and other existing locally available data,
2. defining a number of commuter rail alternatives in terms of service levels, station sites, technology, and other pertinent variables,
3. order-of-magnitude estimate of required capital investment and a sketch level program based on field factfinding, and any existing infrastructure data provided by partner railroads,
4. operating and maintenance cost estimate based on the service and infrastructure requirements, and prevailing rates of railway labour in the local area,
5. sketch level service plan, including forecast journey times, schedules, vehicle cycles, and maintenance windows,
6. assessment of local transport alternatives, including highway and other public transit options,
7. review of existing local growth plans, commercial development strategy, to identify transit-supportive elements,
8. preliminary review of real estate in the corridor to identify any potential acquisition difficulties, e.g. for parking,
9. strategic overall assessment of likelihood in securing outside funding to initiate the capital investment scheme.

Note: Alex Lu performed this work as an employee of another firm.