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Another SunRail Special Service Flop: Not Many Rode Train on Sunday

Tens of thousands of people were in downtown on Sunday, including all the fans of the Orlando City Lions celebrating opening day at the brand new MLS stadium – but not many of them decided to ride SunRail. Special weekend train service was offered for Sunday and it was another flop.

SunRail only had 2,847 total riders, or just around 1,400 round-trip riders. That’s pathetic. Many in the community have been begging for weekend SunRail service, but where are the results when the service is actually offered?

There’s nothing new to this either. SunRail’s ridership struggles even during its regular commuter operating hours during the week. Special weekend service has not yielded any better results. The special night service trains were cut out completely due to extremely low ridership. And even with the opening of a new MLS stadium and the kickoff for a new season, along with great weather and other downtown festivities, only 1,400 round-trip riders for the train.

The highest Saturday ridership for SunRail was back on November 12th of last year. Officials reported a ridership of 3,452, or about 1,725 round-trip riders. The second highest for the special weekend service was February 4th when 3,337 total riders chose SunRail as their transportation. Previous counts include:

November 5, 2016: 3,255
November 12, 2016: 3,452
November 19, 2016: 2,121
December 3, 2016: 1,768
December 10, 2016: 1,723
December 17, 2016: 2,868

All special service for SunRail is privately funded, and Sunday’s service was paid for by sponsored by Orlando City soccer, the Downtown Orlando Foundation and the Downtown Orlando Partnership. SunRail supporters are now calling for service for every Orlando City match, but will the private funding be there with such low ridership numbers?

It probably did not help that March 5th service for SunRail was officially announced on March 3rd. That’s another problem with privately funded ventures, that’s when the decision was made by the sponsors.

So, what will it take to make weekend service work for SunRail? More regular service? Better hours? More funding? What would make you or others in the community choose the train?

9 Responses to "Another SunRail Special Service Flop: Not Many Rode Train on Sunday"

Jeff says:

March 6, 2017 at 12:06 pm

Mike, can you take the numbers aboce and compare it to the number of trains they ran? It would seem 2800 riders in 14 trains mathematically seems much more successful than the weekday ridership versus 36 trains, especially with only 48 hours notice.

Reply
1. Mike Cantone says:
  
  March 6, 2017 at 12:50 pm
  
  Jeff, good point to raise and another reason the community should possibly be calling for more trains to run more regularly and longer hours. However, don’t forget it was only 1,400 total people riding the train (assuming most rode round-trip as would be expected). That’s still not great. I do agree, timing of announcement was bad, but it was the decision of the sponsors to wait that late to finalize it. Many solutions are out there, but officials need to do something to increase ridership numbers and attract new riders to the rail.
  
  Reply
  1. Gabe says:
    
    March 7, 2017 at 6:42 pm
    
    That’s not too bad… Approx 5.5% of Stadium capacity (1,400 / 25,500) rode Sunrail with only 48 hours notice. Plus, it reduced the amount of potential drivers that had a beer or two on the road (on I4 under construction). I live South of downtown and I will absolutely ride Sunrail vs. fight traffic, once the Southern extension is open & complete. Will be much better and more relaxing than jamming into downtown parking and then driving 30min. south into the tourist traffic on their way to Disney. I also love that it was a privately funded choice to add the special trains; makes me even more likely to use it since I prefer that over more public funding. Thanks for posting the ridership numbers!
    
    Reply
    1. Mike Cantone says:
      
      March 7, 2017 at 10:47 pm
      
      Gabe, good comparison on the ridership vs. attendance. It’s a dent, but better timing on the announcement could have made a big difference on increasing the ridership.
      
      Also, it is good it’s private investment, but it’s not a good sign for local governments when they have to start paying for service, or debate offering weekend/night service. The revenue vs. expenses for Sunday’s train service were far apart – will post those shortly as well to give a better idea at costs. Thanks for the comments — really good stuff to think about!
      
      Reply
      1. Joseph M Parra says:
        
        March 8, 2017 at 12:03 am
        
        Not early enough for me. I would have ridden North from Sand Lake but the first train wasn’t until 3pm and I was meeting people earlier. Also I would have had to wait a while for the train back. Would also be better for me once Phase 2 is complete so I can get on further south.
Joseph M Parra says:

March 8, 2017 at 12:05 am

I forgot to add to previous post a question as to the accuracy of the numbers. Anecdotal reports of riders that aren’t used to the system not tapping on and off. Potentially could be non-payers as well, I suppose. Would that reflect a lower count than actual usage?

Reply
1. Mike Cantone says:
  
  March 8, 2017 at 12:29 am
  
  The numbers are directly from SunRail and the Florida Department of Transportation. They are the official ridership numbers. As to your previous comment, I agree the trains started running way too late in the day compared to when people were heading to downtown.
  
  Reply
  1. Jeff says:
    
    March 9, 2017 at 1:00 pm
    
    Mike, another thing to note. Looking back at the schedule, even though 14 one way trips were provided that day. If the soccer game started at 5 (the published start time but not actual) and ended at 720 with a 10-15 minute walk to church street, then only 8 of the 14 trains were actually useful to get to or from the game. So then a question would be, if it was privately funded by ocsc and downtown partnerships. If you take the overall cost $22,635.46 and avg per train $1,616.82, why did theu pay $9,700.92 for trains that didnt serve the game? Seems like an odd choice versus paying for 6 more thans that would have timed more appropriately with the game. Possibly couldnt have gotten more passengers by having these trains align in half hour increments instead of an hour before/after the match… I honestly dont get some of these decisions unless there are some FRA labor regs for this “overtime work” for their staff…
    
    Reply
WON – How Much Does It Cost to Run Special Weekend SunRail Service? says:

March 8, 2017 at 11:14 am

[…] the SunRail trains were running through Orlando on a privately funded special service. While the ridership numbers likely suffered from a late announcement of the Sunday service as well as a limited number of […]

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