In recent years, the policy and regulatory environment for intercity passenger rail in the United States has shifted dramatically. To support the resulting increase in intercity passenger rail planning activities, there is a need to understand the roles for passenger rail service in an intercity corridor, including who is using the service and how it is being used. Using on-board passenger survey data, this paper examines the role of the Hiawatha Service in the modal mix of the dense Milwaukee-Chicago intercity corridor. Primary trip purposes among Hiawatha Service travelers include personal trips, work commutes, and business trips. In the absence of the Hiawatha Service, more than 85 percent of passengers would travel via alternative travel modes. Consequently, it is estimated that the Hiawatha Service removes nearly 400,000 vehicles and 32 million vehicle-miles (51 million vehicle-km) traveled from the congested Milwaukee-Chicago corridor annually. As the nation moves forward with significant investment in intercity passenger rail, there are lessons to be learned from the Hiawatha Service, both for rail service planning and the formation of transportation policy. For rail planning, this research indicates that the proper service configurations can result in a variety of trip purposes being accommodated on the route; this raises additional challenges when considering service elements such as on-board amenities. From a policy perspective, these findings present a compelling argument for continued investment in intercity passenger rail because they demonstrate that the availability of high-quality passenger rail service in the right corridor can have meaningful impacts on highway congestion, regional economic development and job access, and air quality and greenhouse gas emissions.

One common yet effective method used by planners to evaluate the impacts of mass transportation modes is an on-board survey of modal users. An abundance of research exists on this topic from the perspective of evaluating urban transit services; however, background literature on the application of on-board surveys for intercity passenger rail is limited. This paper contributes to passenger rail planning by reporting on the lessons learned during a research project which included an on-board survey of passengers on the Heartland Flyer, a passenger rail route between Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Fort Worth, Texas. Transit on-board survey literature and insight gained from past on-board surveys of intercity rail passengers were used to guide the design of this case study. Lessons learned during the on-board data collection and quality control review process are also reported. Renewed investment in the nation’s intercity passenger rail network will likely result in the need to answer critical questions about how infrastructure funds are being distributed. To answer these critical questions, the lessons learned from this case study can be used to guide the development of future on-board surveys of intercity passenger rail routes. Potential applications include the evaluation of on-board service and amenities or data to support funding requests for state appropriations or grant programs established by the Passenger Rail Improvement and Investment Act of 2008. Measuring these impacts will play a critical role in the strength of funding applications, particularly in a policy environment with a renewed sense of accountability and transparency in the use of scarce public resources for transportation investment.