That should be a great benchmark for Mr Boardman
railtrail That should be a great benchmark for Mr Boardman
The ridership numbers through August 2014 are available at Amtrak.com under About Amtrak, Reports and Documents.
The number of riders should not be confused with the number of customers. A customer may take numerous trips in a year. He or she is counted as a rider for each trip, but he or she is just one customer. In 2013 Amtrak had 31.6 million riders. Unfortunately, it does not disclose how many customers it had.
To date in 2014 I have made nine trips on Amtrak, which counts as nine riders, but I am just one customer.
Customers on the retail level are typiclly measured by the number times purchases are made at a store. For transportation, the number of passengers carried is the metric for airlines. If I flew Delta five times last year or five different people flew once, that's still five passengers. Customers are not measured, AFAIK.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
So the trip I took last week will be mesured when?
railtrail So the trip I took last week will be mesured when?
Never.
schlimm Customers on the retail level are typiclly measured by the number times purchases are made at a store. For transportation, the number of passengers carried is the metric for airlines. If I flew Delta five times last year or five different people flew once, that's still five passengers. Customers are not measured, AFAIK.
The number of customers carried by Amtrak or other commercial carriers is not reported as you indicated. But Amtrak has the information, or it could compile it easily.
Amtrak, Greyhound, Megabus, Boltbus, as well as each commercial air carrier, lifts electronic tickets from their passengers. The information is contained in a computer database and, amongst other things, is used to identify their loyality customers. It would be easy to determine the number of customers. Write one or two lines of code to eliminate duplicate records and run the program. It would spit out the number of customers in a flash.
If Amtrak were required to report the number customers it carried, it would show that fewer Americans depend on Amtrak than is implied by reporting riders or passengers. The same would apply for the other commercial carriers. By contrast the number of licensed motorists is reported in National Transportation Statistics.
One example of this. Say I am Sliver or Platinum on American's Frequent Flyer program. I get mad at American and walk over to Delta Airlines. Delta Airlines is going to grant me temporary status in their Platinum equivalent program for the flight in an attempt to woo me over to them. If I fly them again they will grant me permanent status without me having to climb the ladder all over again. Why? Because they want the annual spend on airline tickets and if they can grab a cash cow American customer via granting advanced status........why not. Seen it happen several times via my coworkes. Hotels do it as well. Say I get Silver status in Marriott........Hyatt will usually grant it as well as a courtesy to get me to stay with them. The only way they can do this is via sharing information on customers via third parties that sell it to them.
Sam1 schlimm Customers on the retail level are typiclly measured by the number times purchases are made at a store. For transportation, the number of passengers carried is the metric for airlines. If I flew Delta five times last year or five different people flew once, that's still five passengers. Customers are not measured, AFAIK. The number of customers carried by Amtrak or other commercial carriers is not reported as you indicated. But Amtrak has the information, or it could compile it easily. Amtrak, Greyhound, Megabus, Boltbus, as well as each commercial air carrier, lifts electronic tickets from their passengers. The information is contained in a computer database and, amongst other things, is used to identify their loyality customers. It would be easy to determine the number of customers. Write one or two lines of code to eliminate duplicate records and run the program. It would spit out the number of customers in a flash. If Amtrak were required to report the number customers it carried, it would show that fewer Americans depend on Amtrak than is implied by reporting riders or passengers. The same would apply for the other commercial carriers. By contrast the number of licensed motorists is reported in National Transportation Statistics.
I agree. However, the same is true of the airlines. In both cases,what really matters is how much is the service or specific route used. Whether 100 diferent people each ride 2 times in one year or 5 folks ride 40 times, the number ofpassengers and, all else being equal,the revenue as well. In fact the frequent flyers are often business folks paying a higher fare than then once-a-year person who finds a bargain.
Trains News Wire has an overview of the results ahead of their release for subscribers:
Brian Schmidt, Editor, Classic Trains magazine
Brian Schmidt Trains News Wire has an overview of the results ahead of their release for subscribers: On-time performance woes sink Amtrak’s 2014 ridership
Looking at the monthly reports so far, that should have been obvious to all. It would be generous if you shared that report with all of us.
schlimm Sam1 schlimm Customers on the retail level are typiclly measured by the number times purchases are made at a store. For transportation, the number of passengers carried is the metric for airlines. If I flew Delta five times last year or five different people flew once, that's still five passengers. Customers are not measured, AFAIK. The number of customers carried by Amtrak or other commercial carriers is not reported as you indicated. But Amtrak has the information, or it could compile it easily. Amtrak, Greyhound, Megabus, Boltbus, as well as each commercial air carrier, lifts electronic tickets from their passengers. The information is contained in a computer database and, amongst other things, is used to identify their loyality customers. It would be easy to determine the number of customers. Write one or two lines of code to eliminate duplicate records and run the program. It would spit out the number of customers in a flash. If Amtrak were required to report the number customers it carried, it would show that fewer Americans depend on Amtrak than is implied by reporting riders or passengers. The same would apply for the other commercial carriers. By contrast the number of licensed motorists is reported in National Transportation Statistics. I agree. However, the same is true of the airlines. In both cases,what really matters is how much is the service or specific route used. Whether 100 diferent people each ride 2 times in one year or 5 folks ride 40 times, the number ofpassengers and, all else being equal,the revenue as well. In fact the frequent flyers are often business folks paying a higher fare than then once-a-year person who finds a bargain.
True, ridership numbers are important. But they only tell half the story. Knowing how many customers (people) are served would give us a better idea of how many people are dependant on Amtrak, Megabus, the commercial airlines, etc.
Amtrak carried 31.6 million passengers or riders in FY13. If its customer base were only 15 million people, which may be reasonable, that is a different picture than the one painted by 31.6 million passengers.
Knowing whether 100 customers made 2 trips in a year or 5 customers made 40 trips is important. Repeat customers making many trips signal that they value the service enough to come back. On the other hand, if a large number of customers make only a few trips, they may be saying never again, as I have heard from numerous friends who gave Amtrak a try.
The number of customers also tells us how many taxpayers are using the system. Knowing the number of taxpayers that use the system could be used to determine how much they contribute toward any federal and state subsidies. In some instances, given a large customer base, they may be covering most or all of the difference between what they pay at the price point and what a carrier receives in direct or indirect government transfers to carry them.
schlimmIn fact the frequent flyers are often business folks paying a higher fare than then once-a-year person who finds a bargain.
It actually reverses on routes with lots of frequent departures sometimes when yield management kicks in at American Airlines as the date of travel approaches and the Business Fares become lower than Joe Public fares. Public is gouged, Business gets the deal. Reverse is true with advanced purchase in most cases when the plane is near empty of reservations. If not a lot of departures to the destination than both the public and business traveler get screwed on last minute pricing.
"ridership on long-distance routes and state-supported services declined by 4.5 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively." Acela was up 6%. Only three LD trains showed increases: Auto-Train, Sunset Ltd and Capital Ltd. All the rest showed fewer riders.
The Vermonter is up 6.6%, more than any train except Washington-Norfolk.
The Vermonter is listed in the State-supported group, as is Washington-Norfolk service.
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