NJ Transit 2023 annual report

Interesting read with nice pictures too!

https://content.njtransit.com/sites/def ... Report.pdf

Ironically the cover shot is on Metro-North trackage, let alone out of state.

I did not see in the report any reference to ridership by individual rail line or farebox recovery. One would think that would be an essential part of the overall report.

FANWOODGUY wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2024 10:42 am I did not see in the report any reference to ridership by individual rail line or farebox recovery. One would think that would be an essential part of the overall report.

I've thought so too, but that has never been included in these reports.

Since we frequently read the challenges NJT faces with regards to funding ridership trends and farebox recovery by line should be a metric reported. The public should be aware of which lines are being utilized and which lines are seeing some sort of farebox recovery. The annual report reads like a pat on the back, absent these details, it is hard to know if these accolades are deserved.

The annual report's primary purpose is financial summaries which are required to be done at a company wide level, not line by line. Plus certain expenses can't really be allocated to a single line, if a locomotive that's used on 5 lines breaks down and needs to be repaired, which line do you assign that expense to?

Also if these numbers were actually released, you can bet the lines that cry the loudest about poor service would be the first ones to show poor metrics (think river line, atlantic city, boonton).

Am I coming away from the report with correct impression that the largest single non-capitol cost NJ Transit has is pension liabilities, and if not, that NJ Transit is very concerned that pension liabilities will grow to become the largest expense period (the discussions about anticipated mortality rates among retirees as part of their planning assumptions seems to be extensive)?

That's not a shock to anyone paying attention to state and municipal budgets elsewhere. And if there's no steps being taken to get away from defined benefits vs a retirement account for newer employees, it's only going to get worse.

Metra and Amtrak have always shown ridership in their annual reports. Odd NJT never had that most basic level of transparency.



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There is https://njlutrans.org which provides a lot of ridership details but it does not include fare box recovery information.

NJT publishes a fact sheet annually with a summary of their ridership statistics. It includes a systemwide farebox recovery ratio. The most recent edition is available at https://content.njtransit.com/sites/def ... GLANCE.pdf and covers July ‘22 through June ‘23. It claims a recovery ratio of 53%. For comparison, this number was 49% in 2007. That fact sheet broke it out by mode: 54 for bus, 68 for rail, and 26 for light rail (presumably dragged down the most by the river line).

eolesen wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2024 8:27 am That's not a shock to anyone paying attention to state and municipal budgets elsewhere. And if there's no steps being taken to get away from defined benefits vs a retirement account for newer employees, it's only going to get worse.

I am a new state employee, and some of my older coworkers pushed me to sign-up for the state's deferred compensation plan - essentially a 401k where I can fund it before taxes (but no matching), but get taxed when I take out of it when I'm retired. And I still pay into the pension fund that is a big question mark on if I will see that.

The writing on the wall about NJ's pensions is there, that's for sure.

IIRC, the people who work on the RiverLINE, due to it being light rail, aren't under the same benefits/pensions/union stuff as NJT employees who work the heavy rail, but I could be wrong there.

eolesen wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2024 8:27 am Metra and Amtrak have always shown ridership in their annual reports. Odd NJT never had that most basic level of transparency.

This is New Jersey, we're not exactly know for being transparent here.

River Line was bid out as a design-build-operate contract, and is therefore operated by Alstom under contract to NJT. The operators are Alstom, not NJT, employees. That's why they don't have the same benefits.

Interesting. I believe that's how much of the country handles passenger rail - the rolling stock and ticketing might be under a state agency, but the lines are built and then operated by private contractors under the branding of said state agency.

I'm assuming RiverLINE employees are not unionized, which might explain why the RiverLINE has poor service - I can't imagine the unionized elements of NJT would allow NJT to pump more funding/resources into what many unionized railroaders would call a "scab outfit."

lensovet wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2024 2:26 am NJT publishes a fact sheet annually with a summary of their ridership statistics. It includes a systemwide farebox recovery ratio. The most recent edition is available at https://content.njtransit.com/sites/def ... GLANCE.pdf and covers July ‘22 through June ‘23. It claims a recovery ratio of 53%. For comparison, this number was 49% in 2007. That fact sheet broke it out by mode: 54 for bus, 68 for rail, and 26 for light rail (presumably dragged down the most by the river line).

Very interesting that commuter rail recovers so much money. I would've expected that busses, which don't require NJT to own/directly pay for separate ROWs and have vastly less maintenance to them than trains, would have recovered more than commuter rail, but I was wrong.

NJT/NJDOT owns a good amount of its non-NEC trackage. I personally wasn't surprised by the numbers because a train carrying hundreds of passengers requires an engineer and a few conductors. A bus can carry at most, what, 80 people per employee? And probably travels fairly empty most of the time anyway for a lot of the routes in the state.

The poor performance of the River Line has nothing to do with its unionization. The funding is simply not there, the tickets are dirt cheap, fare evasion is rampant, and you pay less than two dollars to go 34 miles even if you do buy a ticket. What other mode has such a distance to $$ ratio? Alstom probably gets paid a fixed amount of money for the contract as long as they meet some bare minimum performance metrics, so there's no incentives to invest into the system either.

lensovet wrote: ↑Tue Apr 09, 2024 10:36 pm NJT/NJDOT owns a good amount of its non-NEC trackage. I personally wasn't surprised by the numbers because a train carrying hundreds of passengers requires an engineer and a few conductors. A bus can carry at most, what, 80 people per employee? And probably travels fairly empty most of the time anyway for a lot of the routes in the state.

True. However, NJT still needs to maintain/pay some way for those ROWs, but with a bus, they don't have to directly pay to use the roads. A bus is still at the mercy of automobile traffic though.

lensovet wrote: ↑Tue Apr 09, 2024 10:36 pm The poor performance of the River Line has nothing to do with its unionization. The funding is simply not there, the tickets are dirt cheap, fare evasion is rampant, and you pay less than two dollars to go 34 miles even if you do buy a ticket. What other mode has such a distance to $$ ratio? Alstom probably gets paid a fixed amount of money for the contract as long as they meet some bare minimum performance metrics, so there's no incentives to invest into the system either.

Why don't they try converting it to commuter rail then?