City audit finds Honolulu’s Skyline falls short of expectations

Honolulu’s Skyline rail operation suffers poor ridership, has less-than-­adequate features for the disabled around its stations and does not offer multilingual signage to better inform its ridership base about ongoing changes to the city-run transit system, according to an Office of the City Auditor report released this week.

The city’s over-$10 billion automated fixed-guideway rail system, which runs along Oahu’s South Shore, connecting East Kapolei and Halawa and which has plans to extend to the Civic Center in downtown Honolulu by 2031, is operated and maintained by the city Department of Transportation Services.

But in a final report submitted Thursday to Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration, the city auditor determined DTS suffers outstanding deficiencies in its Skyline operations, including over its ridership.

To that, the audit — conducted from January through December 2024 — states DTS’ goal to operate Skyline was to accommodate 8,000 riders per day after a full year of service.

“According to ridership statistics, the highest number of daily riders in December 2023 was 3,637, less than half of that goal,” the audit states. “Since its opening in July 2023, ridership has decreased 77 percent from 151,633 monthly rides to 85,460 rides in December 2023.”

“We found that despite a favorable reliability rate of 99.2 percent, ridership on the Skyline rail system has fallen short of expectations, with a 77 percent decline from its opening in July 2023 to December 2023,” acting City Auditor Troy Shimasaki stated in a written message to the city administration.

He added, “This decline is attributed to several factors, including limited service area coverage, inadequate operating hours, and insufficient integration with other transportation modes.”

Shimasaki noted the audit determined that “public transportation commuters face disproportionately longer travel times compared to solo drivers, diminishing Skyline’s appeal as a commuting option.”

“Lastly, marketing efforts, including social media campaigns, have been less effective compared to peer transit systems, resulting in missed opportunities for collaboration with local events and businesses,” he said. “Despite generally positive rider feedback on the overall experience, concerns persist regarding limited payment options, insufficient station amenities, and the need for extended operating hours.”

He said these challenges highlight the need for “strategic changes” to improve ridership and enhance the system’s overall performance.

In addition, the auditor said issues surrounding station areas presented “safety and usability concerns that undermine the accessibility goals of the Americans with Disabilities Act and local pedestrian access guidelines.

“Observations conducted at Skyline stations revealed a variety of hazards, including trip hazards, poor sanitation, and insufficient infrastructure for individuals with disabilities,” he said.

He added that these issues “not only pose safety risks but also increase potential liabilities for the city.”

“To ensure equitable and safe transit access, the department should address the gaps in compliance and infrastructure surrounding these stations,” he said.

Finally, the city auditor found that in its effort to create a multimodal system with Skyline, DTS did not include multilanguage information when changes were made to existing bus routes that were used by people with limited English proficiency, or LEP.

“As the agency overseeing Honolulu’s multi-modal transit system, DTS is obligated to ensure equitable access for LEP individuals. Despite this mandate, Skyline lags behind TheBus and TheHandi-Van in providing comprehensive multi-­language resources,” he said. “Barriers to riding ­Skyline increased as a result of not having multi-language resources and people with LEP may have difficulty using Skyline.”

The audit made 10 recommendations to improve current Skyline operations.

Those include offering service amenities similar to other jurisdictions and best practices to increase ridership and public satisfaction.

Other recommendations include expanding social media efforts to target core and untapped demographics through tailored campaigns across various platforms to increase engagement.

And the audit claims DTS needs to prioritize repairs to sidewalks, potholes and pipes, and implement regular maintenance to address hazards and ensure ADA compliance, among other recommendations.

In response to the audit, DTS Director-designate Roger Morton disagreed with many of its negative findings.

Those included the 77% decrease in ridership from when the system first opened for public ridership on June 30, 2023 — in which there were four fare-free days during that Fourth of July holiday weekend.

“Comparing ridership during the four fare-free days in July 2023 with ridership in December 2023 is an ‘apples to oranges’ metric, meaning a comparison between two things that are fundamentally different and cannot be meaningfully compared directly,” Morton wrote.

As far as station accessibility and meeting federally mandated ADA requirements, Morton said DTS “does not have site control over all of the ‘surrounding areas’ around Skyline stations.”

“Many are on state rights-of-way,” he explained.

Still, the auditor found positives to Skyline operations.

The audit report noted that in its first six months of operation, from July to December 2023, Skyline achieved a 99.2% operational performance rating.

“According to the city’s contract with its operations contractor, Hitachi, the operational goal is a reliability rate of 99.5 percent,” the audit states. “Although falling just short of this performance benchmark, the contractor is incentivized to maintain high operational standards. As a result, Skyline riders experienced on-time, reliable operations.”

In addition to rail operations, rail contractor Hitachi — with a city-issued contract valued at $323,124,844 — is also responsible for cleaning and janitorial serv­ice, parking and support vehicle services.

“One of the favorable features of the city’s contract with Hitachi is that the contractor is penalized for poor performance,” the audit states.

“The contractor incurs a $200,000 penalty for exceeding more than one 10-plus minute delay occurrence per month,” the report reads. “This contract provision incentivizes the contractor to maintain reliable operations.”

In the end, Morton said, “DTS will review all recommendations provided in this report from the Office of the City Auditor and strive towards implementation and improvement of our Skyline operations.”

On Friday, DTS announced that starting Sunday, it will begin service changes for select TheBus routes in the Ewa, Kapolei and Makakilo areas, locales not far from existing Skyline stations.

Asked whether these bus route changes were connected to the city audit over rail operations, DTS responded that the auditor’s report and these transit shifts were not at all related.

“These changes were planned well in advance of our second Skyline opening later this year,” DTS told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser via email. “We consider these changes as a first phase of TheBus network redesign for this second opening as we design better connections to the existing and expanding Skyline and TheBus multi-modal network.”