The most recent year included the deadly train crash at Hoboken Terminal in September 2016, as well as three derailments between March and July at New York’s Penn Station.
It also includes a worsening problem of trains canceled due to a shortage of locomotive engineers. The agency has begun to address the crunch, but it may have helped drive some passengers away.
“It doesn’t take much to get people to say ‘To heck with this, I’m not taking that trip,'” said Jon Carnegie, executive director of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University.