Amtrak FY 2011 ridership

[blue streak 1]

Amtrak's ridership for FY 2011 was released today. Some items of interest :

1. The only routes with fewer passengers were the Vermonter, Lincoln, Carolinian (-984), Empire Builder, Cal Zephyra, Coast Starlight. All these trains were subject to cancellations this FY and lost a total of 104K passengers from 2010's ridership.

2. Total of ~ 30.2 M passengers up 5.1%  SD up 6.5%, Acela up 5% NEC up 5.1%. LD up .2%

3. Most increase was Lynchburg 162K up 28.5% or ~ 222 / train day, Piedmont 140K up 40% Avg 191 / train day.  Richmond ? NewPort News 557K up 28.5%

4. Go to the Amtrak website and click on to news release of ridership

http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=Page&pagename=am%2FLayout&p=1237608345018&cid=1237608337144

[Anonymous]

Amtrak has released rider figures for FY11.  I wonder why it has not released the September FY11 Monthly Operating Report, which gives a complete route by route financial picture for the fiscal year ended September 30th. 

Giving the public the revenue side of the equation or income statement without the cost or expense side is disingenous.

 

[Alan F]

The monthly reports normally do not come out until 5-6 weeks after the end of the month in question. Amtrak has been putting out press releases about ridership for the past year plus a week or two after the end of the month, well ahead of the official monthly reports. Just basic PR. The news release does show the ticket revenue numbers which was up 8.5% over FY10. 

The monthly reports have been delayed in recent months, reportedly due to changes in the accounting software. The reports are only available up through June and June is incomplete at that.

The weather cancellations in the mid-West due to the extreme floods and in the East due to Irene & TS Lee did have an effect. As of the May report with ridership up 6.7% for October to May, the projections worked out to 30.5 - 30.6 million passengers for the year. If Amtrak can avoid widespread cancellations due to weather in the next year and any service shutdowns forced by the House, reaching 32 million passengers in FY12 is a solid possibility.