SunRail Ridership Jumps in March, Just Shy of Goal

SunRail ridership went up during the month of March, even outside of various special “free” service days. The March Conductor’s report showed an average of 4,041 boardings per day for SunRail. The bump was a welcome, but still shy of the first-year goal of 4,300 riders per day.

The March ridership numbers are about 500 boardings more than February’s daily average. SunRail ridership dipped in February to 3,561 boardings, or 1,781 people per day taking round-trips. Five days of service in March exceeded the goal of 4,300 riders, while three other days basically met the first-year goal.

Averaging about 2,000 riders a day (if riders are taking round-trips) is still not too terribly impressive, but officials will be pleased to see the numbers starting to move in the right direction.

March showed that when locals had the chance to experience SunRail on select weekends and without having to pay, there was a noticeable surge in riders. Three days over two weekends featured special “free” SunRail weekend service to help transportation to the Orlando City soccer MLS debut on March 8th and the Winter Park Art Fest on March 21st and 22nd.

SunRail reported around 8,500 boardings (or 4,250 people round-trip) for the Major League Soccer debut game in Orlando. The official number is lower than the 10,000 riders some local elected officials earlier claimed took advantage of the service, but the number is still double the March daily average. The City of Orlando picked up the tab for the special free service.

The Winter Park Art Fest proved to be more successful and popular for locals using SunRail, with more than 12,000 boardings one day, and more than 13,000 the second day. That is more than 25,000 boardings in one weekend to and from the Winter Park event.

These “free” days are not included in the regular SunRail average monthly ridership as tickets were not sold and trains were running on special service, not during SunRail’s designated commuter rail schedule. The Florida Department of Transportation and SunRail also did not include the New Year’s Day “free” service for the Citrus Bowl, which only attracted around 800 total boardings for the day.

Including the special “free” service days in March would bring the daily average to 4,931 boardings per day. Now, if SunRail could actually convince some of those “free” riders to buy a ticket this train could finally hit its goals and maybe start to really be in business.