Amtrak Cascades - Passenger miles traveled & on-time performance
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Measures of Amtrak Cascades performance, including passenger miles traveled and on-time performance for WSDOT-supported segments
Passenger miles traveled & on-time performance
Amtrak Cascades passenger miles measure the person miles traveled by Amtrak Cascades riders between their origin and destination stations along the corridor.
Amtrak Cascades on-time performance is the percentage of trains that arrived on-time at their endpoint station. Prior to 2018, trains were considered on-time if they arrived at their endpoint station within either 10 or 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival time, depending on route length. Beginning in 2018, trains overseen by WSDOT were considered on-time if they arrived at their endpoint station within 10 minutes of their scheduled arrival time.
For details on the methodology used to calculate Amtrak Cascades passenger miles traveled and on-time performance, refer to Amtrak Cascades system performance methodology (PDF 5.9MB).
Source: WSDOT Rail, Freight and Ports Division.
Note: All Amtrak Cascades service between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C. was suspended due to the closure of the Canadian border beginning in 2020 and continuing through September 2022.
Performance highlights
In 2023, Amtrak Cascades passengers rode 104.5 million passenger miles on WSDOT-supported trains, an increase of 78.6% from 58.5 million in 2022. Amtrak Cascades restarted one daily roundtrip to Canada, between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., at the end of September 2022 and returned Trains 517 (Vancouver, B.C. to Portland, Oregon) and 518 (Portland, OR to Vancouver, BC,) to service in March 2023 and added two new round trips between Portland and Seattle in mid-December 2023. In 2023, WSDOT-supported Amtrak Cascades trains were on time 55.0% of the time, up 8.0 percentage points from 47.0% in 2022.
In 2022, Amtrak Cascades passengers rode 58.5 million passenger miles in Washington, an increase of 68.1% from 34.8 million in 2021. In 2022, Washington's Amtrak Cascades trains were on time 55.0% of the time, down from 47.0% in 2022.
In 2021, Amtrak Cascades passengers rode 34.8 million passenger miles in Washington, an increase of 45.6% from 2020. In 2021, Washington's Amtrak Cascades trains were on time 50.9% of the time, down from 62.3% in 2020.
In 2020, Amtrak Cascades passengers rode 23.9 million passenger miles in Washington, a decrease of 80.1% from 2019. Ridership in 2020 was about 156,000 a decrease of 79.4% from 756,000 in 2019. In 2020, Washington's Amtrak Cascades trains were on time 62.3% of the time, up from 58% in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic led to significant reductions in ridership and passenger miles traveled in 2020. Pandemic mitigation efforts resulted in reduced non-essential travel, new safety protocols to protect passengers and staff (including limiting ticket sales to 50% of available seats), closure of the Canadian border and significantly reduced service levels.
In 2019, Amtrak Cascades passengers rode 119.8 million passenger miles in Washington, an increase of 3.2% from 2018. Ridership in 2019 was about 753,000, a 3.0% increase from 731,000 in 2018. In 2019, Washington's Amtrak Cascades trains were on-time 58% of the time, up from 50% in 2018. In 2018, Amtrak Cascades' on-time performance goal was changed from 80% to 88%. This goal was contractually negotiated by WSDOT, Amtrak, and BNSF. In 2019, Amtrak Cascades trains between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, British Columbia (the portion of the Amtrak Cascades corridor which WSDOT oversees) experienced 133,312 minutes (over 2,221 hours) of delay, which negatively impacted on-time performance.