Contracting out might be option for PATCO

Could someone else do a better job of running PATCO?

The 14-mile-long railroad that shuttles commuters between Center City and South Jersey has not had a good year.

PATCO's continuing inability to keep escalators operating at its stations has triggered a cascade of customer complaints about other issues: Late trains, dirty stations, uncommunicative staff.

PATCO trains are frequently overcrowded these days because PATCO is gradually sending its entire 120-car fleet to a factory in Hornell, N.Y., to be refurbished.

And trains often are slow - and will be for two years - because crews are rebuilding the railroad on the Ben Franklin Bridge.

The result has been a tarnished reputation for a commuter railroad that used to pride itself on being the little engine that could - running 24 hours a day, on time, in all kinds of weather, carrying about 10 million passengers a year.

PATCO is a subsidiary of the Delaware River Port Authority, whose primary job is to operate four major toll bridges between Philadelphia and South Jersey.

The bridge toll-payers provide a $21 million annual subsidy to cover part of the $47 million annual cost of operating PATCO. PATCO passenger fares provide the other $26 million.

The DRPA board last month turned to its neighboring transit agency, SEPTA, to fix its escalators, agreeing to pay the Philadelphia-based authority up to $100,000 to maintain the machinery until June 1. And PATCO officials are talking to SEPTA about making the arrangement permanent.

So, could SEPTA - or some other entity - be hired to do the rest of the job, as well? Run the trains? Maintain the rails? Collect the fares?

Many transit agencies, including those in Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles, contract out some or all of their commuter rail services.

Some hire private companies, and some hire other transit agencies. Even freight railroads, the original operators of passenger service in the United States, are getting back into the business in some cities.

A local example of contracted rail service is NJ Transit's River Line, the Camden-to-Trenton light-rail line that is operated and maintained by Bombardier Inc., a Canadian company.

No one in an official capacity has suggested shifting PATCO's rail operations since John "Johnny Doc" Dougherty, the Philadelphia labor leader who sat on the DRPA/PATCO board, urged in 2010 that DRPA sell off the railroad. There were no takers then, as Dougherty wanted to sell the money-losing PATCO outright.

Contracting out might be a more attractive option, because DRPA presumably would continue to subsidize the operations and own and maintain the infrastructure.

"There is precedent for something like that," said David Wilcock, a transportation expert who coauthored an industry study last year on contracting out commuter rail services.

He cited the situation with the New Haven Line in Connecticut, where the state owns the line and its assets but contracts train operations to the Metro-North Railroad, which is part of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Other similar arrangements:

Metro-North contracts out the operation of its Port Jervis Line between Suffern and Port Jervis, N.Y., to NJ Transit.

Metrolink in Los Angeles contracts the operation of its seven commuter rail lines to Amtrak.

Other transit agencies have turned to private operators to run their trains:

METRA in Chicago contracts out the operation of three of its 11 commuter rail lines to freight railroad Union Pacific, and the operation of one line to freight operator BNSF Railway.

Virginia Railway Express contracts with Keolis America, a subsidiary of France's Keolis Group, to operate its commuter service in Northern Virginia and Washington.

Tri-Rail, the Florida commuter rail line between Miami and West Palm Beach, hired Veolia Transportation, another French subsidiary, to operate its trains.

Wilcock said about 50 percent of commuter-rail agencies contract out at least some of their operations.

"The tendency is for older, legacy systems to keep it in house," he said. "The newer services tend to go more to contracting out."

A study last year by the Government Accountability Office found that commuter-rail operations were among the services most frequently contracted out by transit agencies.

Advantages cited by agencies included financial savings and operational efficiencies. Disadvantages included loss of direct control over operations, and union officials said cost savings often came from reduced wages and benefits to workers, the GAO said.

PATCO and SEPTA already have some shared history.

PATCO's rail line actually links with SEPTA's Broad-Ridge Spur subway line near Eighth and Market Streets, where there is a connection that used to be used by PATCO's predecessor railroad, the Bridge Line, that went into service in 1936.

And SEPTA officials invited PATCO to join in a joint procurement of railcars about 10 years ago when SEPTA was preparing to buy its new Silverliner V cars, but PATCO declined, opting instead to refurbish its existing cars.

Since SEPTA is a Pennsylvania creation and PATCO is a bistate agency, political challenges might be as big an impediment as any operating issues.

"If the two governors got together and would like to make that proposal, we'd certainly entertain it," SEPTA spokeswoman Jerri Williams said, noting that "some of our riders are PATCO riders."

"But we haven't been approached," Williams said, "and it really isn't our call."