New Inspector General report

Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

TiBike

OBS Chief
Joined
Apr 18, 2015
Messages
709
Location
Alta California
Very revealing. Interesting how the fall in LD ridership is explained. I think it is an unsubstantiated claim absent a proper two factor analysis involving other things that explain the fall equally well. But hey whatever ...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You mean the perception of trains being less safe, due to recent accidents? I didn't read it as being anything other than an explanation of this year's variance, which on a percentage basis isn't much (-2%). On the whole, the report identified a number of factors that appear to contribute to a decline in long distance ridership, with on time performance getting prominent mention. Also mentioned more than once was the need to realign long distance service to better meet demand. Then there were all the other issues, like cleanliness, employee behaviour, decline in nostalgia for train travel (due to an ageing ridership base, with the flip side of the problem a need to readjust service to better suit younger travellers).

Two factor or multivariate analysis would be useful, but it seems to be beyond the IG's scope. Management should be crunching those numbers, though. If management is really putting the blame on recent accidents – the report can be fairly read as saying that too – then that's a problem. That wasn't my takeaway, though.
 
pP3FqDy.jpg


Yikes.
 
If safety concerns dictated travel choices, automobile travel would be far less prevalent.

I do think OTP plays a huge component to it. It has made me more weary of taking the Silvers for intra-Florida travel.
 
Not even an attempt to try to figure out why there is a nosedive in customer satisfaction while the management is doing all these wonderful things that the customers really want according to them, like Contemporary Food and what not.

Sometimes I wonder whether the OIG and Management are more or less in cahoots putting up a convincing facade. Possibly that is just cynical me, but who knows?
default_unsure.png
 
The report certainly supports the changes management is trying to make – to the extent it's critical, it mostly says not enough of it and not quickly enough. It's possible they're in cahoots – I don't have any way of knowing – but it's also possible that the IG independently agrees that the changes are necessary.

But look at the changes. A sharper emphasis on safety, efforts to improve on time performance (including reducing the impact of private cars), more cleaning staff on the NEC – are those bad things? Shouldn't the IG like those ideas? And won't safer, more reliable and cleaner service improve customer satisfaction, once employee inertia is overcome?

I think the IG got it right. There is significant criticism in the report – no effort to address employee integrity, for example – but the tone of it is "something needs to change and it is".
 
The report certainly supports the changes management is trying to make – to the extent it's critical, it mostly says not enough of it and not quickly enough. It's possible they're in cahoots – I don't have any way of knowing – but it's also possible that the IG independently agrees that the changes are necessary.

But look at the changes. A sharper emphasis on safety, efforts to improve on time performance (including reducing the impact of private cars), more cleaning staff on the NEC – are those bad things? Shouldn't the IG like those ideas? And won't safer, more reliable and cleaner service improve customer satisfaction, once employee inertia is overcome?

I think the IG got it right. There is significant criticism in the report – no effort to address employee integrity, for example – but the tone of it is "something needs to change and it is".
Just because there are some good things doesn't mean that there aren't bad things. And as far as I can tell, there has been no significant improvement in safety and OTP since Anderson was made CEO.
 
It is important when examining a slight drop to also see information about: number of days the train was cancelled due to natural disasters/other reasons between the two years as well as a comparison of seat miles between the two years to see if some loss of ridership can be explained by running shorter trains. Curiously Amtrak’s monthly reports for this year don’t include seat miles - will be interesting to see if the end of year report does. Running shorter trains is a good way to poison ridership. Not only obviously because you have less seats/sleepers but you also have less seats/sleepers in the more affordable fare buckets.

The silvers and auto train are going to take a hit from the hurricane Florence closures.

OTP is important and more needs to be done on that front clearly - but there are other things that can lower ridership as well.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Here we are here in what in previous years has bee a slow travel time. Checking the 3 east coast trains the Meteor, star and Crescent sleepers are sold out ( crescent NYP<> ATL ) now it is unknown if any extra sleepers are available but why in the heck isn't Amtrak pushing CAF to deliver ?
 
Lots of fancy words there but too me the big elephant in the room that no one will talk about for ridership decline or staganation is way too high of prices. It is just too expensive for lots of people to even consider a sleeper. Even coach is getting too expensive in some markets.

Also safety is one of those things that is kind of catch all for getting what you want or making your argument that can't be disagreed with. Sort of like "but the children" for school funding. Not that safety is a bad thing, of course it is what everyone wants.

However on this Earth you need to think about productivity and efficiency and cost effectiveness too in a well run company. To pretend that only one of them whether it be safety,or productivity or cost effectiveness is all encompassing is a mistaken notion in my view
 
Lots of fancy words there but too me the big elephant in the room that no one will talk about for ridership decline or staganation is way too high of prices. It is just too expensive for lots of people to even consider a sleeper. Even coach is getting too expensive in some markets.
I agree sleepers are expensive. If sleepers were TOO expensive, there wouldn’t be so many trains with sold out sleepers. And there IS a lower cost option - Coach (and on some trains Business Class)
And I also agree that Acela fares are also expensive. But apparently in that market it is heavily utilized and considered a good value by many. And the non-Acela fares in that market aren’t nearly as high, so a lower cost option exists.

I think if we had MORE trains, prices could come down. But we all know about the challenges in making that happen.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top