The Future of Commuter Rail in North America
Report Number: R-254
Publication Date: 08/20/2025
Commuter rail services operate in more than 20 North American regions, connecting communities to urban downtowns. These services enjoyed decades of growth, with ridership increasing by 50 percent between 1990 and 2019. However, travel demand shifts brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and continued work-from-home patterns caused ridership to collapse and only partially recover. This sudden change also upended the traditional financial model, in which fare revenues covered more than half of operating costs. While commuter rail providers vary in size and structure, they all share an uncertain future in solidifying a long-term and financially sustainable role in serving regional transportation demands.
This report examines the history of commuter rail in North America, evaluates current trends, presents constraints, reviews case studies, and explores strategies— including alternative approaches to service schedules, simplified fare structures, and infrastructure options—to address changing goals and circumstances at the agency, regional, and national levels in the United States and Canada.
Mitigation Strategies for Deterring Transit Assaults
Report Number: R-258
Publication Date: 08/05/2025
Concerns about transit assaults and perceived safety play an important role in transit use and ridership. Research shows that if people felt more secure when traveling and waiting at railway stations, the ridership could increase by 10 percent.
This pre-publication report equips agencies with practical strategies and evidence-based recommendations to enhance safety and security in the transit environment.
Microtransit Solutions in Rural Communities: On-Demand Alternatives to Dial-a-Ride Services and Unproductive Coverage Routes
Report Number: S-178
Publication Date: 05/02/2025
Dial-a-ride and fixed-route transit options are some of the ways that microtransit services have traditionally been implemented in rural areas. App-based booking and dynamic routing are among the newer offerings transit agencies are exploring to provide greater flexibility and more spontaneous options for users.
This report provides a comprehensive overview of rural microtransit operations through a literature review, surveys of 19 transit providers, and case examples of seven agencies. High customer satisfaction and improved service efficiency were frequently cited as benefits of microtransit solutions.
Transportation Emergency Response Application (TERA): Migration Options Beyond 2025
Report Number: R-253
Publication Date: 04/23/2025
The Transportation Emergency Response Application (TERA) is a scenario-based training system that provides training and exercise scenarios and materials for command-level and operational roles in public transportation agencies, state departments of transportation, and airport emergency operations centers for natural and human-made disaster incidents.
This report identifies migration and repurpose options for the content of TERA to one or more platforms and describes materials that have the most value as resources for tabletop exercises.
Tactile Wayfinding in Transportation Settings for Travelers Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired, Volume 1: Conduct of Research
Report Number: R-248
Publication Date: 03/17/2025
Travelers who are blind or visually impaired use a variety of cues and strategies to orient themselves within their surroundings and move through space to where they want to go. This wayfinding process can be particularly challenging in complex urban environments where some cues, such as detectable edge treatments, the sound of surging parallel traffic, or other indicators may be inconsistent, confusing, misleading, or missing.
This report seeks to help provide consistency of tactile walking surface indicators and guidelines for their use in multimodal environments. There is a second volume to the report, titled TCRP Research Report 248: Tactile Wayfinding in Transportation Settings for Travelers Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired, Volume 2: Guide.
TCRP 2024 Annual Progress Report
Report Number:
Publication Date: 01/02/2025
The TRB Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) has released its annual report, which provides an overview of the program, status of each of TCRP’s projects, and a summary of some of the program’s accomplishments for the year.
TCRP focuses on issues significant to the public transportation industry, with emphasis on developing near-term research solutions to a variety of transit problems involving facilities, vehicles, equipment, service concepts, operations, policy, planning, human resources, maintenance, and administrative practices.
Electronic Surveillance of Railroad-Highway Crossings for Collision Avoidance
Report Number: S-177
Publication Date: 12/05/2024
This report documents public transit agencies’ current practices and lessons learned from rail service providers and others regarding the types, nature, implementations, successes, and failures of rail crossing electronic surveillance programs, particularly related to safety. This synthesis provides insights about the needs, decision criteria, measure of effectiveness, success factors, causes for failures, and selected implementations of rail crossing electronic surveillance programs, primarily for safety. The synthesis also discusses potential future advancements in rail crossing electronic surveillance.
