A private consultant hired by the federal government to oversee Honolulu’s rail transit project is worried that passengers who ride the train — to run from Kapolei to Ala Moana Center — might find the trip to be so uncomfortable that they may not use the system.

The report by Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. last October noted the two-car trains that contractor Ansaldo Honolulu JV bid to produce for the city would hold 318 passengers, but that only 64 would have seats. That means up to 254 riders would be required to stand.

In its report to the Federal Transit Administration, Jacobs recommended the city consider asking Ansaldo Honolulu JV to add seats in each car to make the ride more comfortable.

Enrico Fontana, project manager for Ansaldo Honolulu JV, would not comment on the report, but officials with the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation said they now plan to have Ansaldo adjust the car configuration to add six seats to each car.

The train cars and the rail operating system will be produced by Ansaldo under a $1.4 billion contract the city signed late last year. It is the largest single contract in city history.

Passengers on the city’s rail line are expected to travel on some of the longest average passenger trips of any U.S. system, with more people required to stand than would be the case with most other systems across the nation, according to the Jacobs report.

"The expectation that passengers in Honolulu would be willing to endure such long trips standing on crowded trains may not be realistic," the consultant wrote in a report to the FTA. "Substantial fractions of the forecast ridership base may choose to avoid the system under such conditions."

The city projects that the entire rail ride from East Kapolei to Ala Moana will take 42 minutes, although city transit officials point out that most riders will not travel the entire distance.

City projections suggest the average trip will be 9.3 miles, and that peak-hour passengers will be expected to stand for more than 20 minutes on the most typical journeys, the Jacobs report concluded.

Jacobs, which was hired by the Federal Transit Administration to serve as the Project Management Oversight Contractor, warned that if the train turns out to be uncomfortable, that could affect ridership and fare collections.

The comfort factor also has financial implications.

The concern is that "given the length of time that most passengers would be expected to stand on most trips, the system might fail to achieve forecast ridership levels," the report stated.

The city has forecast an average weekday ridership of 116,300 by 2030, with passenger fares projected to generate $47 million a year.

That fare-box revenue amounts to about 40 percent of the total projected annual operating cost of the system, which is expected to be $116 million in 2030.

If the trains turn out to be less popular than expected, that presumably would translate into reduced fare collections that could cause a budget shortfall for the system.

City officials don’t agree that ridership could be lower because passengers may have to stand, said Jurgen Sumann, the rail project’s chief systems engineer. Most passengers will not ride the entire 20-mile route, and some will make much shorter trips, he said.

"People will get on and off along the rail route, as is the case with any transit system, and seats will open up along the way," Sumann said in a written response to questions. "For train passengers with shorter commutes, standing may be preferred to ensure they are able to conveniently and quickly exit the train at their designated stop. This is a common practice with urban rail systems."

The additional six flip-up or retractable seats will bring the number of seats for each two-car train to 76, Sumann said.

"The trains will also be configured in two-car formats," Sumann wrote. "Because passengers will have access to both train cars via (an) enclosed walkway connecting the two cars, they will also have access to the 76 available seats per train."

Regular bus riders in Honolulu predicted that passenger comfort will affect ridership.

Waikiki resident Jerry Corcoran, 66, said he doesn’t believe train cars that require people to stand for long periods will work out well for the city.

"Look at the buses. They’re filled with old people," said Corcoran, who regularly takes TheBus from his home in Waikiki to work sites for his job with the state Department of Health. "I’ve been a commuter in lots of places where they have trains, and normally they have enough seats."

Kaluhea Hamakua, 18, regularly rides TheBus for her commute to and from her Aiea home to classes at Kapiolani Community College, and said standing won’t be much of a problem for her.

"On the bus, it’s just as crowded," she said. "Regularly in the mornings, most of the time I’m standing anyway for 20 minutes in the morning traffic, because you have to give up seats for the elderly people."

But Hamakua said she isn’t sure if standing for significant periods on the train will be acceptable to her fellow transit users. Many will expect more, she said.

"I think their mindset is going to be that it’s supposed to be for us, so the comfort level should be higher, and they should have more seats than that," she said.

The Jacobs report noted that the only systems in the nation with average passenger rides as long as those projected for Honolulu are San Francisco, Philadelphia and Miami.

The report noted the BART system in San Francisco and the PATCO system in Philadelphia provide 64 to 80 seats per car, while Miami offers 70 seats per car.

Honolulu, by contrast, would offer only 32 seats per car — or 38 with the additional seats the city now plans to add — and space for more than 120 people to stand.

The Jacobs report warned that "falls well short of the seating and capacity offered by the transit lines that carry passengers for journeys of similar length and duration."

"After trying the system, many passengers may decide that they are unwilling to endure such crowded conditions for such long trips," the report concluded.

City officials said the comparison with Miami, Philadelphia and San Francisco is misleading. The other cities have heavy urban rail systems with cars that are larger than Hono­lulu’s light metro system, Sumann said. BART cars, for instance, are 75 feet long compared to Honolulu’s 65-foot-long train cars, he said.

Those types of systems are classified as "commuter rail," meaning they serve greater distances with slower average speed, causing average travel times that are longer than is projected for the city.

Sumann said a better comparison is the Hiawatha Light Rail line in Minneapolis with an average trip time of 15 minutes and 74 seats in its two-car train.

"Honolulu’s two-car train with an average trip time of 20 minutes will have up to 76 seats," Sumann wrote. "So it seems reasonable to say that Honolulu’s seating per train car is sized correctly."