Amtrak ridership dips slightly to 30.8M

[CHamilton]

Amtrak ridership dipped slightly in 2015 as delays backed up service on its popular Northeast Corridor route, according to figures released recently by the company.

Amtrak said Monday that it carried 30.8 million in the fiscal year that ended in September, which the company said was a decrease of 100,000 over the same period for 2014, when 30.9 million riders rode the rails.

Amtrak attributed the slight ridership decline to problems with tracks and rail tunnels in the heavily-populated Northeast U.S., where rail is more popular than it typically is in other parts of the country.

http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/263245-amtrak-ridership-dips-slightly-to-308m

 

[greatcats]

Plus the wreck in Philadelphia disrupted the Corridor for the better part of a week.

 

[neroden]

Yes. And, although Amtrak didn't mention it, the fiscal year started with massive NS-induced disruptions to the Michigan Services, Lake Shore Limited, Capitol Limited, and Empire Service, with additional lost connecting revenue.

 

[caravanman]

As an overseas Amtrak rider, I don't tend to pay much attention to the ridership and finances.

Is there any information on the amount Amtrak recieved in "subsidies" for the year to September 2015, and also the amount taken in as ticket sales?

Ed.

 

[west point]

Some events cutting ridership in no particular order.

1. Downeaster cancellations

2. Vermonter derailment

3. New Haven Springfield work cancellations

4. PHL accident

5. CHI - STL construction route cancellations

6. NS melt down into CHI

7. Mudslides around Seattle

8. Empire Builder delays

 

[afigg]

Some events cutting ridership in no particular order.

1. Downeaster cancellations

While the September and October 2015 Monthly reports are still not available, NNEPRA has updated its ridership history table (1 page PDF) for the Downeaster through November 2015. The ridership for October (41,868) and November (39,588) 2015 has rebounded from the track work, slow orders, and delays that started in late 2014. So the Downeaster ridership is rebounding strongly for FY2016, which will help the total system numbers. While October & November 2015 are ahead of the 2014 numbers, they are still below the 2013 ridership stats. If the MBTA ever completes the stimulus funded double tracking and other upgrades to the Haverhill line, the Downeaster should see more reliable service and a faster BON-POR trip time. But the MBTA could drag out the work until the summer of 2017 (or beyond if it wasn't stimulus money with a deadline).

 

[neroden]

Some events cutting ridership in no particular order.

1. Downeaster cancellations

2. Vermonter derailment

3. New Haven Springfield work cancellations

4. PHL accident

5. CHI - STL construction route cancellations

6. NS melt down into CHI

7. Mudslides around Seattle

8. Empire Builder delays

Good list -- however numbers 5,7,and 8 were also happening during FY 2014, so they were *no change*. The others probably are sources of significant ridership drops.

 

[Anderson]

Yes, but in the cases of 7 and 8 there's an issue of compounding damage (e.g. years of lousy reliability building up).

 

[WoodyinNYC]

Some events cutting ridership in no particular order.

1. Downeaster cancellations

2. Vermonter derailment

3. New Haven Springfield work cancellations

4. PHL accident

5. CHI - STL construction route cancellations

6. NS melt down into CHI

7. Mudslides around Seattle

8. Empire Builder delays

Sorry, but this isn't it. The overall downturn was modest, actually, a leveling off, but it was nationwide.

Only 8 of the 29 state-supported routes were up, only 5 of the 15 LD trains were up in Fiscal Year 2015.

So even add a couple more special cases, like DET-Kalamazoo construction delays and disruptions, and changeover chaos on the Hoosier State, and it's still nationwide. (In fact, ridership on the Vermonter was up last year.)

Still looking at 2/3rds of the corridor trains down and 2/3rds of the LD trains down. Because it is nationwide, I'm looking at lower gas prices. Not feeling pessimistic, because if that's the big hit from the much lower gas prices, Amtrak will easily survive it.

 

[neroden]

Remember, problems with the NEC automatically affect the Cardinal, Crescent, Silver Star, Silver Meteor, and Palmetto, and the Chicago-east problems affected the LSL and CL. That's the entire eastern long-distance network. Plus, the Chicago disruption affected all the Michigan services, while the NEC disruption directly affects the Virginia services, Carolinian, Springfield-New Haven, Vermonter, Keystone, and Pennsylvanian. That's before we start discussing connections.

That's really most of the system.

Perhaps you can blame gas prices, but the fact is that a disruption between Philadelphia and New York affects most of Amtrak, and a disruption just east of Chicago affects most of the rest. And if you try to attribute all of the drops to gas prices, then there would have been *no* effect of the disruptions, which would frankly be *weird*.

The declines on the Heartland Flyer, Illinois and Missouri services, San Joaquins (negligible), the Piedmont, and the Cascades might be due to gas prices. But the Piedmont loses a lot when the Carolinian is disrupted.

One of the things going on here is that the drop in gas prices is not that significant, percentagewise, in the states which had higher gas prices to start with. It has its greatest effect in states which had low gas prices to start with. Another is that a drop in gas prices doesn't mean much in a severely traffic-congested area; it's more significant in an area with "open roads".

So I'm willing to believe that cheap gas had an effect on the Heartland Flyer, and maybe the Illinois services, and maybe the Piedmont and the Cascades, but it seems implausible to think they had an effect on New Haven-Springfield

Also, look at which so-called long-distance trains had gains in ridership:

California Zephyr

Southwest Chief

City of New Orleans

Texas Eagle

Palmetto

Four out of the five of these are the ones we'd expect to be unaffected by the disasters. (We'd also expect the Coast Starlight and Sunset Limited to be unaffected, and the Coast Starlight dropped by an insignificant number. I don't have an explanation for the Sunset Limited.)

 

[Bradenmeridian]

No one mentions the record snow fall in the NE as a factor?