California State Rail Plan embraces international best practice of Service-Led Planning
The recently updated California State Rail Plan is an exciting and ambitious long-term vision for improved, seamlessly connected rail network across the state - but it is particularly notable because it includes, as a fundamental element, an international best practice to plan capital projects based on the service outcomes delivered to riders.
Service-led planning has been central to the creation of seamlessly-integrated rail and transit networks in other parts of the world, and will be essential for California to deliver the value from the infrastructure upgrades needed to attract far more riders to rail and transit.
Service-led planning was one of the key practices that Bay Area transit leaders learned more about from practitioners in Switzerland in the web-based master class in 2022 and international study tour in 2023, and supported in the report summarizing study tour findings.
What is service-led planning
The premise of service-led planning is that the value of capital investment is not adding a line to a map, but in making travel faster, more coordinated and more convenient for many customers.
To do this requires planning the capital improvements in order to support service goals. This includes improvements that optimize travel time to be competitive with driving or flying. Travel time is not just the speed from point to point. With service-led planning, travel time improvements consider transfers as part of the trip time.
Therefore, the process includes delivering a predictable schedule with “a repeating timetable [that] allows for easy trip planning and seamless travel by ensuring connections between trains can be made throughout the day, with minimal transfer times.” When service-led planning goals drive design of infrastructure, designs for major stations, “[minimize] physical and temporal distance to facilitate easy and well-timed transfers across a platform or to a bus bay.” (California State Rail Plan, p. 15)
The Swiss study tour report describes how the practice is implemented:
“Planning at the national level starts with a federally-mandated “integrated timetable” and node system, which utilizes a standardized, clock-faced schedule to provide seamless connections between rail services. Also known as a “pulse” schedule, train departures from each major city, or “node,” are aligned so that customers can easily transfer from one line to the next within a few minutes, minimizing wait times and providing the maximum number of travel options.“
Service-led planning can improve cost-effectiveness of a capital program by proposing “infrastructure improvements needed to only those necessary to operate the repeating timetable.”
In Switzerland, the travel time between many of the major cities targeted at being just under an hour to enable timetables across the network to be easily coordinated, making it easy for riders to make timed transfers at major cities. Node-to-node travel time does not need to be minimized if it already works within the national clock-faced schedule.
Importantly, successful service-led planning depends on “local transit [that] will continue operating, with planned improvements to provide necessary local connectivity.”
For example, according to Kyle Gradinger, Chief, Caltrans Director of Rail, the capacity of a single-track railroad can be maximized before additional track infrastructure is needed.
Case studies
The practice of service-led planning - and the benefits of greater use of this practice - can be seen in many examples around the state. However, more changes are needed to strengthen the practice and remove barriers to implementation.
Caltrain was one of the earliest adopters of service-led planning, which underpinned the agency’s Business Plan, envisioning frequent all day service with target travel times. The $2B Caltrain electrification project was completed in September 2024, enabling faster, more frequent, more regularly scheduled service on the Peninsula Corridor. This enables more reliable connections to the Amtrak Daylight, Capitol Corridor, regional and local transit.
The State Rail Plan identifies another improvement for Amtrak Capitol Corridor adding a 3rd track to Roseville to enable 10 round trips between Roseville and Sacramento Valley with 30 minute travel time (and potential run-through future regional service between Roseville and Davis). However, permitting delays for fiber optic and gas utilities have substantially impacted the budget and schedule of the Capitol Corridor project resulting in a two year delay.
Metrolink attempted to roll out a clockface schedule in 2024 along with service increases throughout the day, as part of an initiative to increase ridership. However, the clockface schedule ran into snags and riders faced delays on the San Bernardino line where there is not enough capacity to run the service. The challenges provide a clear guide for the small capacity improvements on the San Bernardino line called for in the State Rail Plan to enable a clockface schedule. In addition, passengers experienced delays on Orange County, Inland Empire-Orange County and 91/Perris Valley lines where Metrolink service was delayed by BNSF and Union Pacific freight trains. Metrolink and its county transportation agency partners are negotiating with freight rail on short and long-term improvements. (In the meantime, Metrolink has made some service tweaks to improve reliability.)
Another example of service-based planning can be seen in the plans to extend SMART from Windsor to Cloverdale. SMART wanted to add a second Novato station, which added dwell time that would have broken the clockface schedule. At first, SMART proposed double tracking the line in order to meet the schedule. But planners developed less expensive passing siding solutions to enable SMART to get back on the clockface schedule at a more moderate cost.
There are important opportunities on the corridor connecting Los Angeles to San Diego which has some of the strongest market potential for intercity rail in the United States. However, coastal tracks are on the verge of falling into the ocean. Numerous projects that would allow more frequent, reliable and connected service are stalled due to fragmented decision-making. Stalled projects include Orange County Transportation Authority’s (OCTA) Serra Siding Extension project that would allow more frequent trains through a bottleneck near San Clemente and Dana Point, and LA Metro’s Raymer to Bernson Double Track project, that would increase Surfliner and Metrolink service north of Los Angeles by providing much-needed capacity between Chatsworth and Van Nuys.
The State Rail Plan’s long term-service vision [include image of train diagram] provides an important guiding vision with target travel times and level of connectivity across the state that can provide some guidance for transit advocates and local agencies seeking to improve rail transit. The State offers technical support to agencies to conduct service-led planning to plan capital projects, and has made it a criteria in how it awards some types of state capital funding, such as the TIRCP program.
Opportunities to make service-led planning a reality
The State Rail Plan provides an excellent baseline from which to implement service-led planning across California and get greater value out of our investments in rail and transit. However, additional actions will be needed to make the vision and plan a reality, including:
Ensuring sufficient operating funding to run the local and regional connecting service
Cap and Trade reauthorization for continued state funding support
Governance frameworks to clarify how project decisions are made across agencies and jurisdictions
Process to decide which transfers and connections to prioritize for coordination
Setting data standards that enable consistent evaluation of travel times and connection
Transparent reporting and metrics for the public showing travel time connection reliability
Defining and choosing project options based on service goals
Accelerating electrification to deliver faster, more frequent, more efficient service patterns
The State Transit Transformation Task Force Task Force, which is charged with recommendations to the administration and legislature to increase ridership is expected to revisiting the topics of coordination and standards this year to vote on recommendations. We will keep you posted with opportunities to support strong recommendations.
For the LOSSAN corridor in particular, SB 1098 (Blakespear) requires a state-convened working group to identify the necessary steps that result in improved ridership, utilization and management of the rail corridor. The bill directs the state transportation agency in coordination with the state’s natural resource agencies to identify prioritized capital and resiliency projects that ensure the long-term viability of the corridor.
To learn more about the State Rail Plan, Service-Led Planning, and opportunities this year to advance the vision, tune in for a webinar on March 4. The program features Shannon Simonds of the Caltrans Division of Rail, Eric Goldwyn of the NYU Transit Costs Project, and Adriana Rizzo of Californians for Electric Rail, moderated by Adina Levin of Seamless.