Will passengers be more attracted by price or speed?

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CHamilton

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One opinion:

Price Tops Speed for Attracting Passengers

How a person travels depends on several factors. Saving time is nice, but so is saving money. Safety and comfort are also factors in choosing how to travel. The best value for traveling is the best combination of speed, price, comfort and safety. If all things are generally equal, price usually is the deciding factor in choosing how to travel. Much is made about High Speed Rail service being as fast as air service for trips up to 500 miles long. It is not unusual for air traffic to dramatically decline when there is competing High Speed Rail service. This is often because High Speed Rail service is cheaper and as fast as air service, particularly in Europe.
 
Amtrak is too slow. It is slower than driving a slow car. Amtrak is limited to 79 mph in most areas and Europe has their trains running at 125 mph in most IC routes. The fares are a little high but the speeds are way too low..
 
Highly unlikely that many Amtrak routes will see track and signaling upgrades to permit speeds above 79 mph.

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I think we need to look at fixing the sloppy scheduling first and foremost. If customers can't anticipate their arrival with useful accuracy then the speed of travel is kind of irrelevant and recouping the operational costs is likely to be impossible.
 
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Highly unlikely that many Amtrak routes will see track and signaling upgrades to permit speeds above 79 mph.

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There are a lot of places where 90 MPH might be doable with PTC. Beyond that, though, I generally agree.
 
I think we need to look at fixing the sloppy scheduling first and foremost. If customers can't anticipate their arrival with useful accuracy then the speed of travel is kind of irrelevant and recouping the operational costs is likely to be impossible.
Absolutely agree...establishing reliability of the advertised schedule is more important than a slight improvement of speed for keeping and attracting business. This year, the OTP has really taken a hit.
 
Depends. For shorter distance trips I generally care more about speed and getting somewhere faster. For a 10+ hour trip, if I take Amtrak it's generally because it's cheaper than flying and timing is less important.
 
To run 90, not only do you need different signals than you do at 79, but you also need FRA Class V track instead of Class IV. Many of the host railroads are willing to maintain Class IV because that's what they need for freight on high-density lines. (There are exceptions where Amtrak operates on Class III track, such as Cary-Hamlet-Columbia-Fairfax on the Silver Star.) The host railroads might be willing to maintain a few lines at Class V for freight, but those are the exception. Usually a host railroad brings a line up to Class V when they do heavy trackwork, and then over time the line is allowed to degrade to Class IV without spending a lot of money until the Class IV standards are in jeopardy. At any point in time, the track might or might not actually meet Class V.

The host railroads will look to Amtrak or somebody for the incremental cost in maintaining the entire track to Class V, which probably means meeting some or all Class VI standards at the time of heavy trackwork.

Note that very few European lines carry the freight tonnage that many of the lines traversed by Amtrak do.

There are places where 79 or even 70 is competitive against driving. Just try Richmond-Washington on I-95 any Friday, Saturday, or Sunday in the summer.
 
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Increasing frequencies and being reliable is most important IMHO. This gives passengers choices.

The Chicago metra is an example where increased frequencies would help. IMHO each line should have off peak service with trains running every 30 minutes. 1 express and one local every hour.
 
I think we need to look at fixing the sloppy scheduling first and foremost. If customers can't anticipate their arrival with useful accuracy then the speed of travel is kind of irrelevant and recouping the operational costs is likely to be impossible.
Suspect that none of the three: speed, price or timeliness Amtrak has much control over, or can make significant changes to... speed is limited by the routes, which they don't own; price much by congress and basic costs of operations; and timeliness by the dispatchers/traffic of the UP/BNSF routes they use.
 
Price Tops Speed for Attracting Passengers
But this is not really supported by the ridership numbers in the latest Monthly reports. Acela ridership continues to grow (up +6.2% in July 2014) and it is sure not competing with the buses and driving on price. The NE Regionals are back on the growth path as well and NE Regionals are not low balling their prices either. Meanwhile some of the state corridor trains are seeing ridership erosion, despite much lower ticket prices than the NEC, which Amtrak is attributing in part to competition from buses.

Of course, in reality, ridership and market share is due to a overlapping set of factors: price, trip time, convenience in terms of service frequency and schedule, comfort, reliability, distance traveled, driving time over the route available to the passenger (a straight shot on an Interstate or slow state roads, for example), distances to the nearest airports, costs of the air tickets, local transit options at the destination city or easy access to car rental agencies, and so on.

I think the key for many corridor services is to have a trip time reasonably competitive with driving, reliability, and preferably having at least 3 to 5 trains a day. A decent to good local rail transit system for the larger destination cities is a major plus. Get to that level of service with affordable ticket prices and the corridor service will do pretty well. But the ridership numbers and market share will still remain modest until frequency increases to 10 a day or more with faster trip times.

At some point, if the capacity is large enough, trip times are fast enough, and the operating costs have been held down, then Amtrak or the passenger rail operator could lower ticket prices to gain a bigger market share and even undercut the discount buses in the right circumstances.
 
I think we need to look at fixing the sloppy scheduling first and foremost. If customers can't anticipate their arrival with useful accuracy then the speed of travel is kind of irrelevant and recouping the operational costs is likely to be impossible.
Absolutely agree...establishing reliability of the advertised schedule is more important than a slight improvement of speed for keeping and attracting business. This year, the OTP has really taken a hit.
There was a time when "you could set your watch", by the passing by of a regular train.....wonder if that will ever be the norm again... :rolleyes:
 
There are a lot of places where 90 MPH might be doable with PTC. Beyond that, though, I generally agree.
90 mph would beat driving in most parts of the US, given sufficient frequency & reliability.
Key being "most parts"....Even higher speed than that would not allow trains to ever match the driving time between places like New York to Cleveland on I-80, or Oakland to Los Angeles on I-5, where the railroads have a much longer, or topography-challenging route to negotiate.....
 
But aren't there tradeoffs, ie, even though Amtrak might be limited to 79mph, and yes, in some places one can drive faster (Utah posts I-15 at 80, which means it runs closer to 90), an important point is: that one has to drive the car, but one can merely be a passenger on the train. So; maybe one can get there minutes faster by car, in theory one should be more rested by train.
 
Note that very few European lines carry the freight tonnage that many of the lines traversed by Amtrak do.
Russian lines routinely carry those levels of freight tonnage, and have frequent, on-time passenger service. The advantages of a nationalized vertically-integrated monopoly.
There are places where 79 or even 70 is competitive against driving. Just try Richmond-Washington on I-95 any Friday, Saturday, or Sunday in the summer.
Or anything at all on the approaches into New York City, of course. Heading for upstate NY, the top road speed limit in NY is 65, although people speed. On the approach to NYC, traffic means nobody goes that fast.
Top speed is not the issue on the Empire Service, which actually *should* be faster than driving already. Irresponsible delays are the issue. We need passenger-exclusive tracks in order to escape CSX's irresponsible dispatching and poor maintenance; and we need Amtrak conductors to open all the doors and check tickets on the train (not on the platform); and we need long, high platforms at all the stations. Top speed is not the primary issue. However, once you have passenger-exclusive tracks, the top speed increase from 79 to 90 or 110 costs basically nothing, so you might as well.

Schedule reliability is a huge deal; a few case studies have suggested that going from reliable service to unreliable service can lose *half* your revenue. The illegal dispatching abuse historically perpetrated by several of the Class Is really should have subjected them to pay loss-of-business damages directly to Amtrak, but so far the Class Is have gotten away with it. Amtrak seems to be unable to get certain parts of its operation (Chicago maintenance, Empire Service conductors) to operate efficiently as well.
 
But aren't there tradeoffs, ie, even though Amtrak might be limited to 79mph, and yes, in some places one can drive faster (Utah posts I-15 at 80, which means it runs closer to 90), an important point is: that one has to drive the car, but one can merely be a passenger on the train. So; maybe one can get there minutes faster by car, in theory one should be more rested by train.
Plus, depending on the distance, you have to stop to sleep while driving. On Amtrak, you can sleep while the train is still moving.

We've weighed the pros and cons of driving to ABQ instead of taking the train, since driving would actually be a lot faster if we drove straight through, but neither of us like the idea of sitting in a car for 21 hours or trading driving/sleeping shifts. It's just so much easier to take the train.

Driving: 20 hours, 41 minutes with no stops

Train: 32 hours, 30 minutes with the transfer in Chicago
 
Amtrak is too slow. It is slower than driving a slow car. Amtrak is limited to 79 mph in most areas and Europe has their trains running at 125 mph in most IC routes. The fares are a little high but the speeds are way too low..
79 would probably be great - IF Amtrak could do it. Having a top speed of 79 has no meaning if the average is 30 because Amtrak is waiting on freights, there are too many slow orders or the track, in general, can't support higher speeds because of terrain, curves or condition.
 
But aren't there tradeoffs, ie, even though Amtrak might be limited to 79mph, and yes, in some places one can drive faster (Utah posts I-15 at 80, which means it runs closer to 90), an important point is: that one has to drive the car, but one can merely be a passenger on the train. So; maybe one can get there minutes faster by car, in theory one should be more rested by train.
Plus, depending on the distance, you have to stop to sleep while driving. On Amtrak, you can sleep while the train is still moving.

We've weighed the pros and cons of driving to ABQ instead of taking the train, since driving would actually be a lot faster if we drove straight through, but neither of us like the idea of sitting in a car for 21 hours or trading driving/sleeping shifts. It's just so much easier to take the train.

Driving: 20 hours, 41 minutes with no stops

Train: 32 hours, 30 minutes with the transfer in Chicago
Basically you're making my point... of late I'm doing a lot of DAV-OMA on the CZ, which takes 40-42 hrs... only once have I done the same route in the same time, but in all honesty, really would have to call it 60-something hours, because the next day I was so wasted that I got nothing done. But beyond that there is the cost reality: 1800 miles is 60 gallons of gas ($180 at OMA prices, $240 at DAV prices); plus there is the cost of a one might, and maybe two in a room: add another $100+... where I can ride the CZ - for this last trip: $128; and can rent a comparable car at the OMA airport for $23/day unlimited miles. The only downside on the CZ is the question of sleep, quality thereof; and possibly company I'd not choose in a car - this time a drunk, that after five vodka spiked Mtn Dews wanted to sing and be everyone's best friend.
 
Anecdote to confirm the comment about how sleeping on the train can create a time and price advantage:

When I used to drive between Ithaca and Minneapolis, we always needed to stop overnight to sleep once (usually around Toledo), and had two full days of driving. Leave in the morning of day 1, arrive in the evening of day 2. In the other direction, we again needed to stop overnight to sleep once (usually around Cleveland); leave in the morning of day 1, arrive mid-day on day 2.

When I take Amtrak between Ithaca (catching the train in Syracuse) and Minneapolis, I leave in the evening of day 1 and arrive in the evening of day 2, so going west it's actually faster. On the way back, I leave on the morning of day 1 and arrive at mid-day on day 2, so it's the same speed.

As for price, coach in Amtrak is cheaper than driving this way (for two people); the night in the hotel room (it could be as low as $50, but if you happen to hit a busy period in whatever town you stop in, it could exceed $100) really does add a lot to the cost of driving. The cost of driving is already around $200 in gas (in the car I used to do the trip in), before considering less easily calculated stuff like wear and tear on the car, which are substantial. (The last road trip I took actually cost me an unexpected $200 in the form of a replacement tire for a flat tire incurred due to debris on the road we were driving on...)

Roomettes on Amtrak are certainly more expensive than driving, but once you figure in the difference between included meals and the meals on the road, the premium isn't that huge. And the LSL includes relatively few meals and tends to have particularly high roomette prices, so the value proposition is better on most of the other routes.

I know lunatics who drive straight through but frankly I don't think they're safe to be on the road and I wish they wouldn't do it.
 
But aren't there tradeoffs, ie, even though Amtrak might be limited to 79mph, and yes, in some places one can drive faster (Utah posts I-15 at 80, which means it runs closer to 90), an important point is: that one has to drive the car, but one can merely be a passenger on the train. So; maybe one can get there minutes faster by car, in theory one should be more rested by train.
Plus, depending on the distance, you have to stop to sleep while driving. On Amtrak, you can sleep while the train is still moving.

We've weighed the pros and cons of driving to ABQ instead of taking the train, since driving would actually be a lot faster if we drove straight through, but neither of us like the idea of sitting in a car for 21 hours or trading driving/sleeping shifts. It's just so much easier to take the train.

Driving: 20 hours, 41 minutes with no stops

Train: 32 hours, 30 minutes with the transfer in Chicago
Basically you're making my point...
Yes, I was agreeing with you. :)
 
For most city pairs, on a trip long enough for Amtrak to have a time advantage thanks to hotel stays, it's going to be faster and cheaper simply to fly.
 
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