Today’s NNEPRA board meeting took place in the DOT building in Augusta just prior to Gov. Baldacci’s signing of LD2019 – the bill to enable the expansion of freight and passenger service to Freeport and Brunswick (more on that in another posting).
Ridership numbers for this past April were impressive, to say the least:
April, 2008 – Busiest month in Downeaster history with 42,810 passengers, a 48.3% increase over the same period last year (April, ‘07 saw three days of down service because of storms). Even with that exception, the numbers were record-breaking.
Daily ridership was 1,427, which was 387 passengers more per day than the previous year.
Fiscal year to date, ridership is 360,959 or a 25% increase over the same period in FY07.
Travel between Portland and Boston, the most popular city pair, showed an increase of 62% over last year.
On Time Performance was 89.3% and the Customer Satisfaction Index stood at 88% (3 month average and a considerable rebound from the winter lows).
Travel between Saco and Boston increased 79.6% and Wells to Boston was up 68.7%
The two millionth passenger boarded sometime this month as the April report showed 1,974,151 riders had used the Downeaster since Dec 15, 2001.
Just typing these items into our blog is breathtaking!
Finally, Wi-Fi should be up and running in all cars by June 1st. Each Sprint unit, attached to a window in each car, can handle 16 users simultaneously which means 80 riders can be on the Internet as they merrily ride the rails to Boston and return home. NNEPRA is providing this server FREE to Downeaster riders…correcting my earlier entry.
Reader Comments
The explosive Downeaster ridership growth is simply amazing. Even as a long-time booster of the Downeaster project, I find it hard to believe!
The increased farebox revenues are also helping to offset the rapidly escalating cost of fuel, labor & benefits, insurance, etc.