Attachment

A

Amtrak On-Time Performance: 3rd Quarter of FY 2011
(data covers October 1, 2010 through June 30,2011

On-Time Percentage Constant or Better, v
(compared to prior year period and target) Effective Speed | Indicates
Change in MPH | both tests
Change FY 2011 Change from October 2008] Were met
Amtrak | from Prior oTtr from OTP |Baseline for Last 4| for OTP
OTP Year Target Target Quarters Progress
Northeast Corridor Service (Goal proposed for FY. 2012: 98%) eee
Acela 84.1% 3.0% 93.6% (9.4%) (1)
Regional Service 79.5% 2.9% (0.4)
Other Corridor Services (Goal proposed for FY 201 FY 2011; 85%) oe
Adirondack 66.1% 3.7% 85,0% (18.9%) 0.6 v
Blue Water 59.2% | (10.7%) | 85.0% (25.8%) 2.1
Capitols 95.1% 3.1% 86.9% 8.2% 2.0 ¥
Carolinian 65.2% 17.8% 85.0% (19.8%) 0.7 v
Cascades 68.3% (3.1%) 85.0% (16.7%) 0.3
Downeaster 81.0% 9.0% 87.6% (6.6%) (0.0)
Empire Service 86.5% (0.3%) 86.3% 0.1% 1.6
Ethan Allen Express 64.8% | (11.6%) | 85.0% (20.2%) 0.2
Heartland Flyer 86.2% _|_ (0.1%) | 85.0% 1.2% 33
Hiawatha 88.4% | (1.4%) | 89.8% (1.4%) (0.3)
Hoosier State 59.1% | (16.8%) | 85.0% (25.9%) 1.6
Mini 51.2% (8.5%) 85.8% (34.6%) 1.0
Mlinois Zephyr 90.9% | (1.7%) | 85.0% 5.9% 13
Keystone 88.1% 15% 89.1% (1.0%) (0.4)
Lincoln Service 67.7% | (6.4%) | 85.0% (17.3%) 17
Maple Leaf 64.1% | (9.3%) | 85.0% (20.9%) 0.5
Missouri Services 89.6% (2.4%) 85.0% 46% 8.1
Pacific Surfliner 80.2% 1.7% 87.0% (6.7%) 0.1 v
Pennsylvanian 86.4% (4.6%) 86.3% 0.1% (0.1)
Pere Marquette 53.8% | (3.4%) | 85.0% (31.2%) 24
Piedmont 79.8% 5.1% 86.9% (7.0%) 1.2 v
San Joaquins 90.0% 0.0% 85.6% 44% 1.2 v
Vermonter 78.6% | (6.0%) | 85.0% (6.4%) 2.0
Wolverines 25.4% | (42.2%) [85.0% (59.6%) 0.2
‘Long Distance Trains (Goal proposed for 012: 85%. Minimum target for FY 2011: 78.8%) |.
Auto Train 90.7% 5.1% 80.4% 10.2% 14 v
California Zephyr 51.0% | (8.2%) | 78.8% (27.7%) 24
Capitol Limited 49.8% (21.4%) 78.8% (28.9%) 1]
Cardinal 39.9% (17.8%) 78.8% (38.8%) 0.9
City of New Orleans 7B.3% | (8.3%) [ 85.0% (11.7%) 0.7
Coast Starlight 3.6% | (17.1%) | 78.8% (5.2%) 0.9
Crescent 72.5% _| (0.4%) [| 788% (6.2%) (0.0)
Empire Builder 443% | (34.8%) | 82.7% (38.4%) (1.4)
Lake Shore Limited 61.1% | (18.2%) | 78.8% (17.7%) 0.5
Palmetto 81.0% 18.4% 78.8% 2.2% 1.0 v
Silver Meteor 81.4% 8.1% 78.8% 2.7% 0.6 v
Silver Star 70.1% | (8.0%) | 78.8% (8.6%) 1.0
Southwest Chief 81.0% | (2.0%) | 80.0% 0.9% 0.1
Sunset Limited 85.0% | 3.4%) | 78.8% 6.3% 0.8
Texas Eagle 643% | (5.3%) | 78.8% (14.4%) 2.6



@

U.S. Department ADMINISTRATOR 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE

of Transportation Washington, DC 20590

Federal Railroad
Administration

OCT 2 6 20H

The Honorable Daniel K. Inouye
Chairman, Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate

Washington, DC 20510

Dear Mr. Chairman:

Section 154 of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies
Appropriations Act, 2010 (Pub. L. 111-117) requires the Federal Railroad Administrator to
“submit a report on April 1, 2010, and quarterly reports thereafter, to the House and Senate
Committees on Appropriations detailing the Administrator's efforts at improving the on-
time performance of Amtrak intercity rail service operating on non-Amtrak owned
property. Such reports shall compare the most recent actual on-time performance data to
pre-established on-time performance goals that the Administrator shall set for each rail
service, identified by route. Such reports shall also include whatever other information and
data regarding the on-time performance of Amtrak trains the Administrator deems to be
appropriate.”

Tam pleased to submit the quarterly report in accordance with this requirement. I hope that
the information contained in the enclosed report will assist the Committee in its work.

Identical letters have been sent to the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on
Appropriations, and to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Committee on
Appropriations.

Sincerely,

Joseph C. CB

10
Administrator

Enclosures


Amtrak On-Time Performance (OTP) Report
(Required by Section 154 of Pub. L. 111-117)

This report includes (1) an update on recent Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) efforts to
improve Amtrak’s on-time performance and (2) Amtrak’s OTP results and performance
against FRA-established goals.

(1) OTP Highlights through August of Fiscal Year (FY) 2011

OTP Benefits of the High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail (HSIPR) and Railroad
Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) Programs: On May 9, 2011, the
Secretary announced over $2 billion in FY 2010 high-speed and intercity passenger rail
(HSIPR) rail grants that covers 15 States as well as the Amtrak-owned Northeast Corridor
(NEC) (a complete list of selected investments is available at
www.fra.dot.gov/roa/press_releases/fp_DOT_57-11.shtml). Through the States, and now
Amtrak, the HSIPR program is providing a total of approximately $10.1 billion for
incremental upgrades to existing railroads as well as new high-speed rail systems. FRA,
Amtrak, the States, and host railroads continue to develop agreements for the performance
improvement(s) in intercity passenger rail service that are to be realized upon completion of
the respective projects.

Most of the HSIPR awards will ultimately raise the effective speed of the benefiting
services, through a combination of better reliability (through capacity additions and other
means) and/or higher running speeds. One example of a benefitting project is the
obligation of $745 million for construction along the NEC to upgrade the components
and/or capacity of some of the most heavily-used sections, resulting in improved on-time
performance and reliability. As another example, a total of $729 million of Federal funds is
being invested to procure new, American-built locomotives and passenger rail cars that will
operate on corridors throughout California, Washington State, and the Midwest. These cars
will be capable of traveling at 125 mph and will improve equipment reliability while
increasing passenger capacity. When complete, these and many other HSIPR projects are
expected to directly improve the OTP of the affected routes, as measured in this series of
OTP reports to Congress as well as the Metrics and Standards reports required under
Section 207 of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA).

In addition to the HSIPR grant program, FRA’s RRIF program offers opportunities to
benefit passenger and freight railroads. On June 29, 2011 Secretary LaHood announced a
$562.9 million loan to Amtrak under RRIF that will create hundreds of manufacturing jobs
across several states. The dollars will finance the purchase of 70 high-performance, electric
locomotives from Siemens Industry USA, enabling Amtrak to replace 20-to-30-year-old
electric locomotives, averaging 3.5 million miles each, with modern, high-quality
equipment. The new energy-efficient locomotives will improve the reliability, as well as the
frequency and performance of regional and intercity routes along the Northeast and
Keystone Corridors. Currently, Amtrak’s regional trains in the NEC are experiencing 0.88
equipment-caused delays of 30 minutes or more per 10,000 train-miles—more than twice as
many equipment-caused delays typical of newer Acela equipment, an imbalance that the
locomotives will remedy.

Publication of Metrics and Standards: Jointly with Amtrak, FRA developed and published
on May 12, 2010, the Metrics and Standards for intercity passenger rail services as required


by Section 207 of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA).
The fourth quarterly Metrics and Standards report is available on FRA’S webpage at

www. fra.dot.gov/Pages/2165.shtml. The latest report provides data on Amtrak’s financial,
operational, and service quality performance for the third quarter of FY 2011. A key
feature of the operational information is the delay minutes Amtrak experiences on the host
railroads for each route, The data collected for the third quarter of FY 2011 illustrates
Amtrak’s reliability experiences across its system, with some Class I railroads exceeding
the delay minutes standard on most, if not all, of the Amtrak trains hosted.

Implementation of the Metrics and Standards: System wide, Amtrak continues to work
with the host railroads to ensure that they are managing intercity passenger rail
performance to the implemented Metrics and Standards as directed by PRIIA. On the
southeast corridor, for example, Silver Meteor and Palmetto service operations on CSX rail
met the FRA standard for host-responsible delays in the third quarter of FY 2011. Amtrak
and CSX continue to focus on improvements to the Carolinian and Northeast Regional
services, which continue to experience higher delays. In addition, Amtrak remains focused
on eliminating extra recovery time that was temporarily added to the Auto Train schedule
in FY 2007; however, CSX and Amtrak have not yet arrived at an agreement to effect this
change.

With continued reporting of the quarterly Metrics and Standards and augmented detail,
coupled with related provisions in other sections of the PRIIA, OTP improvements are
expected with host railroads and Amtrak.

(2) Goals and Route Performance

Attachment A contains OTP statistics for all Amtrak routes through the third quarter of FY
2011. As the attachment illustrates, a fifth of the routes (9) had improvements in OTP (in
terms of both improved percent on time and no decrease in effective speed) through June of
FY 2011. Of those routes experiencing OTP improvement, a total of five (two corridor-
type and three long-distance trains) are meeting, or are surpassing, their FRA-defined OTP
target for FY 2011. By contrast, four-fifths of the routes showed declining OTP, declining
effective speed, or both.

The OTP across the entire Amtrak system through June FY 2011 was 79.3 percent, which
is a 0.9 percentage-point decrease from the previous year. This decline in system wide
performance is largely attributable to the OTP experience of the long-distance trains, which
declined by 9.4 percentage-points through period compared to the previous year (for an
average endpoint OTP of 66.7 percent). Further highlighting this downturn in OTP, 80
percent of the long-distance trains have experienced a year-over-year decline in on-time
arrivals through June FY 2011.

Amtrak’s short-distance routes outside the NEC (i.e. “Other Corridor Services”)
experienced a smaller decline in OTP than the long-distance trains through the period (for a
year-over-year decline of 1.6 percentage-points) and had an average endpoint OTP of 79.9
percent. Two-thirds of the short distance routes had year-over-year declines in on-time
arrivals through June of this fiscal year while 80 percent of the long distance routes
experienced a decline in OTP year over year.