Amtrak June FY11 Ridership Numbers

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afigg

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Amtrak put out a news release today touting "AMTRAK TO EXCEED 30 MILLION PASSENGERS FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER". After a string of monthly news releases touting 17, 18, 19 months of consecutive year to year monthly growth, I guess they decided touting 20 consecutive months would be getting repetitive. So go for the 30 million projected as the headline, now that is a very safe bet. See http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/BlobServer?blobcol=urldata&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobkey=id&blobwhere=1249229233047&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobheadername1=Content-disposition&blobheadervalue1=attachment;filename=Amtrak_ATK-11-100_Amtrak_to_Exceed_30_Millions_Passengers.pdf

Quoting from the news release:

"Amtrak is basing its projection of more than 30 million passengers on strong June ridership numbers and expected ticket sales for July, August and September. June 2011 was the best June on record with more than 2.6 million passengers for the month and marked 20 consecutive months of year-over-year ridership growth, a streak that began in November 2009.

This strong performance is part of a long-term trend that has seen Amtrak set annual ridership records in seven of the last eight fiscal years, including more than 28.7 million passengers in FY 2010.

Comparing the first nine months of FY 2011 (October – June) to the same time period in FY 2010, national Amtrak ridership is up 6.4 percent so far this fiscal year and all three major business lines are showing gains: the Northeast Corridor up 5.6 percent, state-supported and other short distance corridors up 7.8 percent, and long-distance trains up 3.9 percent."

The ridership numbers were good, but some trains took a big hit for the month: the poor Empire Builder, CZ, CONO, Heartland Flyer due to weather. Lincoln Service (-40.9%), Vermonter due to track work. Wolverine Service -4.2% due to NS slow orders. The Piedmont service took a -25.4% hit for June, but don't know if there was a service disruption for it or not.

So breaking the ridership record for June with 2,672,163 passengers is doing very well overall.
 
afigg said:
Amtrak put out a news release today touting "AMTRAK TO EXCEED 30 MILLION PASSENGERS FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER". After a string of monthly news releases touting 17, 18, 19 months of consecutive year to year monthly growth, I guess they decided touting 20 consecutive months would be getting repetitive. So go for the 30 million projected as the headline, now that is a very safe bet. See http://www.amtrak.co..._Passengers.pdf

Quoting from the news release:

"Amtrak is basing its projection of more than 30 million passengers on strong June ridership numbers and expected ticket sales for July, August and September. June 2011 was the best June on record with more than 2.6 million passengers for the month and marked 20 consecutive months of year-over-year ridership growth, a streak that began in November 2009.

This strong performance is part of a long-term trend that has seen Amtrak set annual ridership records in seven of the last eight fiscal years, including more than 28.7 million passengers in FY 2010.

Comparing the first nine months of FY 2011 (October – June) to the same time period in FY 2010, national Amtrak ridership is up 6.4 percent so far this fiscal year and all three major business lines are showing gains: the Northeast Corridor up 5.6 percent, state-supported and other short distance corridors up 7.8 percent, and long-distance trains up 3.9 percent."

The ridership numbers were good, but some trains took a big hit for the month: the poor Empire Builder, CZ, CONO, Heartland Flyer due to weather. Lincoln Service (-40.9%), Vermonter due to track work. Wolverine Service -4.2% due to NS slow orders. The Piedmont service took a -25.4% hit for June, but don't know if there was a service disruption for it or not.

So breaking the ridership record for June with 2,672,163 passengers is doing very well overall.
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There was a service disruption on the Piedmont, but that ended April. It's amazing how Amtrak can lose so many passengers and yet set a record. Imagine if the weather wasn't a problem!
 
Acela150 said:
What's a "Special Train"??? :blink:
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A chartered train. The numbers for chartered trains are off a bit for the year.

The May 2011 Monthly report is up on the Amtrak website in the Reports & Documents page if anyone is interested. The raw ticket revenue for passengers for the first 9 months of FY11 (Oct 2010 to May 2011) is up $120 million ($1,235.9 million total) over the first 9 months of FY10 (%1,115.2 million), which obviously helps with the books and the bills. Sleeper class revenue was up by $10 million over FY10. The June revenue for the LD trains won't look nearly as good when they are posted.

On the Operating Results table for the FY to date, total revenues are $60 million ahead of budget, while total expenses are running $16 million below budget. The biggest reason for the lower expenses is lowered depreciation numbers (down by $27.1 million) which is due to "Due to an adjustment to the model for group depreciation and lower than planned capitalization", so the lower expenses are primarily bookkeeping. Data Processing Services is running $15.7 million over budget for the FY - WiFi and E-ticket project costs over runs possibly?
 
Texas Sunset said:
What wifi? What e-tickets? Why would a datacenter relocation cost 15 million?
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WiFi and eTicket info are included in the FY11 and FY12 Grant Requests:

See here and here.

With regard to WiFi, Amtrak is rolling out WiFi in all of its Amfleets by the end of the year (or so they said earlier in the year in a press release). I haven't seen any come online, but I've definitely seen secured "AmtrakConnect" wireless networks in a number of Amfleets lately.

I couldn't tell you exactly where eTicketing is. The above reports mention they were going to do a pilot rollout on the Downeaster in June, but that didn't happen, so I'm not sure how far behind they are compared to the above report.
 
Texas Sunset said:
transit54 said:
afigg said:
Data Processing Services is running $15.7 million over budget for the FY - WiFi and E-ticket project costs over runs possibly?
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That, or extra costs incurred in the datacenter/server relocation that took place a few months back.
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What wifi? What e-tickets? Why would a datacenter relocation cost 15 million?
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It depends on the data center, but I can vouch for the high costs of relocating. We moved the operations portion of the Mission Control Center at JPL more than once. Just the thought of uncabling marking, moving, and rerouting all the back side equipement just makes accountants shudder. Not to mention getting it all running again with a myriad of induced errors and new problems with the h/w and s/w. There is much more, especially realtime operations, that is just a sampling.
 
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Oldsmoboi said:
No ridership numbers for July yet?
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Amtrak has not put out a press release with the July ridership numbers so far. It is possible that the July 2011 ridership numbers did not keep up the 20 month long streak of exceeding the ridership numbers for the month in the year before. July was not a great month with the service disruptions from the the floods for the western LD and some corridor trains, track work interruptions for the Lincoln service, Vermonter, slow orders for the Wolverine, and whatever else went wrong in July. The economy also took a hit in July so the NEC may have seen a break in the streak of ridership increases. If the July 2011 ridership numbers did not exceed the July 2010 numbers, why put out a press release about it?

On the other hand, the June 2011 Monthly report is still not on the Amtrak web site. It could be that the people who have to review and sign off on the numbers and reports are on vacation. August tends to be a slow month in DC.
 
transit54 said:
Texas Sunset said:
What wifi? What e-tickets? Why would a datacenter relocation cost 15 million?
Click to expand...
I couldn't tell you exactly where eTicketing is. The above reports mention they were going to do a pilot rollout on the Downeaster in June, but that didn't happen, so I'm not sure how far behind they are compared to the above report.
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E-ticketing applies to the Auto Train. It was available to us on our March and April trips.
 
We also still don't have a full report on June...very frustrating, but I suspect we may get a large batch of numbers come the end of the month. Of course, I am worried that this means that the streak has been broken...
 
AlanB said:
Amtrak always releases these reports in spurts, I've seen 3 months at a time come out in the past.
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The last several month they have pretty steadily been out somewhere between the 10th and the 15th. And as for the monthly performance reports - which Amtrak has to release, I don't know about the fast release of the monthly numbers - the website states that they will be released about 10 weeks after the end of the reported months. So the June performance report is long overdue. :angry2:
 
trainviews said:
The last several month they have pretty steadily been out somewhere between the 10th and the 15th. And as for the monthly performance reports - which Amtrak has to release, I don't know about the fast release of the monthly numbers - the website states that they will be released about 10 weeks after the end of the reported months. So the June performance report is long overdue. :angry2:
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I think you mean about 6 weeks after the end of the reported month. Amtrak has been fairly reliable in posting the monthly reports one at time about 5-6 weeks after the end of the month for the past year plus. I attribute the late June report to the August slow-down when many people tend go on vacation in the DC area. I'm impressed that the FRA and Amtrak signed off on the $450 million dollar grant for the NEC project in NJ this week. The threat of rescission from the House must have gotten the obligation signed off much sooner than it would normally have been.
 
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