AC Line Trains Late 9 Percent Of The Time; That Has Consequences

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ — A bus showed up to the Atlantic City Rail Terminal at about noon Friday. It was supposed to be a train that was scheduled to get there at 10:49 a.m. Customers expected to leave Philadelphia 30th Street Station at 9:14 a.m.

It wasn't the only time something like that happened Friday. An AC Rail train scheduled to leave Atlantic City at 6:49 a.m. was also canceled and replaced with bus service. Both trains were canceled because of "engineer availability," according to NJ Transit.

NJ Transit recently released data so members of the public could track how often vehicles on their train, bus, light rail and AccessLink services were delayed or canceled. Governor Phil Murphy made the data public on an executive order.

Atlantic City Rail trains were late or canceled 8.9 percent of the time in October, the last month of data that NJ Transit lists — 7.3 percent were late, and 1.6 percent were canceled.

That means if a commuter uses the Atlantic City Rail to get to and from work five days a week, it's likely that one of those trails will be late or canceled each week.

Patch spoke to a customer, who wished not to be identified, who was supposed to leave 30th Street Station for Atlantic City at 9:14 a.m. Friday. The commuters expecting to use that train waited on a rail before they were told to wait elsewhere for a bus, she said.

"I think the train is a good service, but dependability is maybe an issue," she said. "They need a better backup plan for when drivers call out."

The bus went to the next stop after 30th Street, which is Pennsauken. Nobody got on or got off. Then the same happened at the next stop at Cherry Hill.

So the bus driver asked everyone where they were departing. Nobody needed to get off until four stops later in Egg Harbor City. Some of the patrons even sat up front and helped him find a more direct route to the stop.

After that, the only remaining stops were Absecon and Atlantic City. Even though they were over an hour late, the customer Patch spoke with appreciated that people were supportive and that the bus driver was able to skip some stops and get them to Atlantic City a little quicker.

But the costumer was still concerned about the train line's reliability issues, saying that the consistency of public transit service is especially important with the greater emphasis on people's carbon footprint.

"If I were going to the airport and I was an hour late, I would've been in a real bind," she said.

NJ Transit set a goal for Atlantic City Rail Line trains to be on time 94.7 percent of the time. The service's publicly released data goes back monthly until January 2017. The line exceeded the 94.7-percent benchmark only once in that span.

March 2017 measured at 94.9 percent. Its least efficient month came in September 2018, with only 72.2 percent of trains showing up on time. The line was shut down during that month and reopened May 12.

Among all NJ Transit trains in October, 91.1 percent were on time — coincidentally the same figure as the Atlantic City Rail Line. Here's how the other lines performed:

• Main-Bergen: 92.7 percent on time
• Montclair Boonton: 88.3 percent
• Morris & Essex: 87.2 percent
• Northeast Corridor: 92.4 percent
• North Jersey Coast: 90.7 percent
• Pansack Valley: 95.7 percent
• Raritan Valley: 94.7 percent

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