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Long distance routes: Which to continue, which to cut?

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[quote user="John WR"] Amtrak reports 31.2 million passengers rode its trains in 2012.  The US population is about 313 million.  So altogether about 10 per cent of the total population road Amtrak.  I think that is pretty respectable.   However, it is well established that 85 per cent of all passengers ride on the north east corridor.  That means about 4.7 million rode long distance services which is, as you say, less than 2 per cent of the whole public.   Of course some people are not really available to ride Amtrak because they are too infirm to travel or incarcerated or in the military and overseas and for similar reasons.  Still, I think your "under 2 per cent" figure is pretty reasonable.   But the question I would ask is if there are people who genuinely need a service should the government as a matter of principal ignore that need because there are so few of them?  [/quote] Approximately 72 per cent of the U.S. population is 18 or older.  Most people over 18 determine how they will travel; many if not most people under 18 have that choice made for them by a guardian. Amtrak's 32.1 million passengers in FY12 is not comparable with the population. They are different data. The population is the projection of the estimated population generated by the results of a valid statistical sample.  The population is every human body that can be counted in accordance with the Census Bureau guidelines. The number of passengers reported by  Amtrak represents the number of tickets lift from customers (individuals).  Last year I made 11 trips on Amtrak.  I was one person who used Amtrak 11 times and, therefore, I was counted as a passenger 11 times.  I also made six trips on Southwest Airlines and, as was true for Amtrak, I was one person counted as six passengers.   Just reporting the number of passengers carried without disclosing the number of customers hoisted by a carrier, i.e. Amtrak, commercial airlines, commercial bus companies, cruise ship lines, etc., does not reveal the true picture.  Well, does not tell a reader how many customers the company has, and that is different from the number of its riders or passengers. As far as I have been able to determine, Amtrak does not reveal how many customers it had in FY12. Clearly, it was less than 32.1 million, if for no other reason than I was one customer taking 11 trips.  My guess is Amtrak may have had as few as 22 million customers in FY12. When I lived in NYC and Hartford (12 years), I knew people who took the train from NYC to Philadelphia and Washington two or three times a week.  The same dynamic that applies to determining Amtrak's customers, as opposed to passengers, also applies to the commercial airlines and the commercial bus companies.  However, it does not apply to motorists.  They are licensed as individuals.  In 2010, if I remember correctly, there were approximately 210 million licensed motorists in the U.S.
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