Revamped Amtrak website step in right direction, needs just a little work

After having gotten so used to the previous design of Amtrak’s homepage that I paid almost no attention to it aesthetically, I find the revamp that was unveiled on Sunday quite refreshing. While it is near impossible to fully convey the experience of train travel in the architecture of a website, the new look does a better job of conveying its pleasures, and of drawing viewers’ attention directly to the best fares available on trains serving their current location. But perhaps as significant as the new look is the new content that was introduced along with it.

The redesign’s launch is also noteworthy for being glitch-free. This is surely a testament to Amtrak staff and the contractor’s taking time to work through any issues with integrating the existing interfaces for reservations, train status, etc. before the launch. One will notice that the reservation booking process is exactly the same as it was before, just with a different look — at least for now. The company says bigger changes to this process are planned for late next year, but hasn’t given any hints as to exactly what will be different about it. 

The rethink of the “Amtrak Experience” page is particularly noteworthy. The company’s marketing team seems to have taken to heart that the quality of the experience is, and has always been, passenger trains’ biggest selling point compared to other means of travel. This is even more true where other modes offer lower fares than Amtrak. The Experience page takes more direct aim at the railroad’s competition on its busiest segments, particularly intercity buses. With bus fares almost always being lower than the lowest possible rail fare on routes such as Washington-New York, Washington-Durham NC, Chicago-Twin Cities, Austin-Dallas and Portland-Seattle, it is all the more important that Amtrak convey that taking the train is worth the extra cost. 

Another major improvement is the interactive travel planning map. It is good for those who are new to train travel to get a visual sense of the route they will take, as trains often don’t go exactly the same way as highways. It also provides a sense of other possible origin-destination combinations. Two limitations I have discovered in experimenting with it are:

1. It does not show certain Thruway bus routes or other connecting services that are ticketed through Amtrak. A search for some itineraries to or from stations served only by Thruway services will return the message “We cannot find train service matching your request.”
2. If Amtrak does not offer a through itinerary from a given origin to a given destination, it will say “We cannot find train service matching your request,” even though it is possible to travel by train between the points — but on separate tickets and often with an overnight stay. One example is St. Paul to Fort Worth, where no connection is offered from the Empire Builder to the Texas Eagle (making the connection would require two separate tickets and an overnight stay in Chicago). Of course, situations like this speak to the need for the nation’s passenger train network to expand.

It is obvious to anyone with significant experience traveling on both modes that the train offers a superior service to a motorcoach, but this needs to be conveyed directly and succinctly to those who are inclined to make a decision on price alone. It also helps that trains avoid the traffic that buses get caught in, and that they have more legroom and offer amenities that buses lack, like on-board food service.

On that subject, the “Experience” tab also calls attention more directly to on-board food offerings, a page that evokes the pleasure and conviviality of a meal in the dining car. While I am glad the company is emphasizing this, in spite of all the downgrades in quality that dining car service has suffered over the past decade, it is a bit ironic that this comes at the same time as the railroad is experimenting with removing the dining car from a long-distance train, the Silver Star, to see whether unbundling food service from the price of a sleeper (and only offering mediocre Amcafé fare on a 19-hour New York-Miami run) results in higher sleeper occupancy rates. To make matters worse, the “Menus at a Glance” page still has an active link to a dining car menu for the Star, giving visitors the false impression that the train still has a diner. 

Though it is only one step in what passengers expect will be continuous improvement in Amtrak’s customer interface and responsiveness to the needs of its patrons, the relaunch of Amtrak.com indicates that the company’s marketers are thinking along the right lines. Key to the success of future upgrades will be the many arms of Amtrak’s vast bureaucracy working in concert to streamline the way the public interacts with the company, and to ensure a consistent passenger-first ethos at all levels. 

One final note: While I hope that the diner-off experiment fails to increase revenues, if the lower accommodation prices for the Silver Star’s sleepers result in higher occupancy rates, this should prove to Amtrak’s revenue managers the business sense of strategically offering greatly discounted sleepers. Too many passengers are scared away from trying a sleeper by the price tag, which in many cases is more than double the cost of flying between the same two points. But if they could be lured in by special deals, similar to the ones offered for coach seats through “Saver” fares and “Express Deals” and have an enjoyable trip, they may be more willing to pay the full freight next time. This should also prove that it makes sense to resume the practice of conductors offering coach passengers deeply discounted upgrades to unsold sleepers. I still fail to understand why, if Amtrak is demanding a $200 on-board upgrade charge for Roomette, the railroad wouldn’t rather sell it to a coach passenger for $100 than let it go empty.