Measuring the Benefits of Intercity Passenger Rail: A Study

Data Needs for Intercity Passenger Rail Planning
Intercity passenger rail planning encompasses a variety of scenarios, each with varying
levels of complexity and requirements for data to support decision-making. Intercity passenger
rail planning scenarios could include the following:
• Establishing new intercity passenger rail service where none currently exists;
• Extending of existing intercity passenger rail corridors to new market areas;
• Expanding of existing service in the form of additional service frequencies;
• Expanding of service in the form of additional station stops along the existing route;
• Increasing seating capacity; or
• Implementing new on-board amenities or services.
Data used to inform transportation planning decisions, including intercity passenger rail
planning, are generally referred to as either “revealed preference” or “stated preference” data.
Revealed preference is broadly defined as data about actual or observed choices made by
individual travelers, while stated preference data are obtained by creating hypothetical situations
and asking travelers what they might choose do to when presented with a particular situation and
a set of alternative choices (38).
For a simple example of the difference between revealed and stated preference data,
consider a situation where a rail planning agency wishes to invest in its current service by
establishing or funding an additional frequency on an existing intercity passenger rail route. To
aid in the decision to expand the service, the agency wishes to know the level of patronage
(ridership) that might result from the additional frequency. A planner for the agency might
estimate percentage growth in ridership resulting from an additional service frequency by
examining ridership response on the route in question when service frequencies were increased
in past years, or, if this is the first effort to increase frequency, the planner might identify other
routes in the region or country where service frequencies were increased and examine how the
changes impacted ridership. This is an example of the use of revealed preference data; that is,
observations of actual choices travelers make, to support intercity passenger rail planning. In
this scenario, the rail planner might also deploy an on-board survey of current riders of the
service to gauge their level of interest in an additional frequency. Alternatively, a survey of
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