New Jersey is home to some of the busiest transit systems in the entire United States. The primary public transit operator in the state, New Jersey Transit (NJT), is the third largest transit provider in the country in terms of ridership. NJT provides bus, commuter rail, and light rail services throughout the entire state, covering a service area of 5,325 square miles.
In addition, there are two rail systems that are operated separately from NJT’s services, although they each share transfer points with NJT itself. The first of these is PATH, which is operated by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. What is PATH today was constructed by the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad and the first trains began operating along the route in 1908. Today, PATH serves Newark, Jersey City, Hoboken, and Manhattan and over 240,000 riders each day.
The Port Authority Transit Corporation (PATCO) operates a single heavy-rail line between Center City Philadelphia and Lindenwold, NJ via the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and Camden, NJ. PATCO continues to run its original rolling stock, dating back to 1968. It was one of the first transit systems in the US to use automatic train operation.
New Jersey Transit operates 11 commuter rail lines serving 164 stations throughout the state. Most of the service is concentrated in Northern New Jersey, the one line in Southern New Jersey is the Atlantic City Line.
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New Jersey Transit owns, leases, or subleases over 3,000 buses serving 267 routes
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The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail (HBLR) connects Jersey City, Bayonne, Hoboken, and Weehawken. It initially opened in 2000.
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The Newark Light Rail (formerly the Newark City Subway) consists of two lines. The original Newark City Subway route operates between Newark Penn Station and Bloomfield. The Broad Street Extension operates between Newark Penn Station and Newark-Broad Street Station. The service operated with PCC trolley cars until 2001 and now uses Kinki-Sharyo LRVs.
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The River Line operates between Trenton and Camden, New Jersey using diesel powered light rail vehicles. The 34 mile line opened in March 2004.
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The PATCO Speedline runs between Center City Philadelphia and Lindenwold, NJ via Camden, NJ. The heavy rail line is one of very few in the US to operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Its fleet of railcars, originally built in the 1960s and among the first in the nation to use automatic train control, is currently being overhauled by Alstom.
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PATH is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, connecting Newark, Hoboken, Jersey City, and Manhattan. The system was originally built by and operated the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad (H&M) starting in 1908. When the H&M declared bankruptcy in 1962, the Port Authority bought it out of receivership; through this deal the Port Authority was able to construct the original World Trade Center. PATH replaced all of its older rolling stock with new PA-5 railcars that were built between 2008 and 2012. Due to being a part of the national railroad system on account of track connections that no longer exist, all of PATH's rolling stock must comply with FRA regulations, even though it appears to just be a conventional heavy rail system.
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