LIRR ridership, punctuality continue rebound

Long Island Rail Road officials said its trains ran on time more often in 2025 than any year outside of the pandemic, even as they carried more customers than any year since the COVID-19 outbreak.

But punctuality remains a challenge at Jamaica Station, where at least 30% of all rush hour trains still run late, according to the railroad’s president. But the LIRR surpassed its target of running 94% of all its trains on time, which it defines as arriving at their final destination less than six minutes after they're scheduled.

The newly released LIRR data shows the railroad carried 81,946,669 riders in 2025, an 8% increase over 2024, and the most since 2019 — a year in which the LIRR set a 70-year ridership record with 91 million passengers.

After plummeting to as low as 3% of its usual riders during the height of COVID-19, the LIRR closed out 2025 with about 90% of its pre-COVID customer base back on its trains.

Even with trains as packed as they had been in years, the railroad reported operating 96.2% of them on-time, just shy of its 96.3% record set in 2021, when COVID-related service reductions and light ridership helped the railroad stick to its schedule.

In an interview Thursday, LIRR President Rob Free said the on-time performance is the result of several new strategies employed to minimize delays, including using GPS navigation technology to pinpoint trouble spots.

"We have a lot more technology at our disposal," said Free, noting that the railroad has focused on punctuality at every stop, and not just at terminals. "We look at a lot more data points. We perform a lot of deep analysis."

Hicksville commuter David Richman, who has been riding the LIRR for nearly 25 years, said the railroad has done "a pretty good job with being reliable" as of late, but was skeptical of the assertion that fewer than 4% of trains ran late last year.

"I find those 96% numbers quite suspect," said Richman, who believes there’s also a downside to the railroad’s growing ridership.

"The trains are always packed," said Richman, who typically commutes to and from Penn Station. "If I get on the train just before the train is going to leave, I’ll be lucky if I get a decent spot to stand."

Free said with the LIRR adding many trains to its schedule with the opening of Grand Central Madison three years ago, there’s typically plenty of room on trains. In December, only about 1% of rush hour trains reached 90% capacity, he said.

The LIRR has also made strides in improving on-time performance at Jamaica station, the LIRR’s primary transfer point, according to Free. When the LIRR began reporting Jamaica metrics in the summer of 2024, only about 53% of morning peak trains were on time, and about a 63% of PM peak trains were on time. By the end of 2025, morning on-time performance at Jamaica hit nearly 63%, and evening on-time performance reached 70% — the goal set by Free two years ago.

Still, Peter Haynes, founder of the LIRR Commuters Campaign advocacy group and a former LIRR systems project specialist, said those numbers don’t tell the whole story, especially considering that the railroad did away with timed transfers at Jamaica three years ago, meaning trains no longer wait at Jamaica for specific connections.

"A person can come in on a train now, narrowly miss a connection that they would normally get, and wait for the next one," Haynes said. "Three trains are marked ‘on-time’ and the person is late to work."

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.