Allow Amtrak ticketholders extend ride to commuter trains

[TheCrescent]

While Amtrak (particularly the Acela) markets itself as the best choice for trips between downtowns, the pandemic has surely reduced the number of trips to downtown areas and increased the amount of business done in suburbs.

SEPTA in Philadelphia allows Amtrak ticketholders to ride SEPTA trains between a few stations in Center City Philadelphia. There are plenty of other commuter railroads that allow intercity passengers to ride for free. Belgium, for example, allows riders on certain intercity high-speed trains to ride Belgian commuter trains (SNCB/NMBS) for free to any Belgian station.

So why doesn't Amtrak expand partnerships with commuter railroads to be nationwide? I can see the ads in the NY metropolitan area: "Hey, Long Islanders! Book your Acela ticket and start from any LIRR station for free, for a seamless trip!"

 

[joelkfla]

SEPTA is probably footing the cost. Amtrak paying commuter railroads for connecting passengers' fares would likely be very expensive to Amtrak.

 

[slasher-fun]

Belgium, for example, allows riders on certain intercity high-speed trains to ride Belgian commuter trains (SNCB/NMBS) for free to any Belgian station.

Not for free, but for a flat fare.
https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Questions/Tickets#Connection

 

[railiner]

SEPTA in Philadelphia allows Amtrak ticketholders to ride SEPTA trains between a few stations in Center City Philadelphia.

This practice dates back at least to when the PRR closed its Broad Street Station, moved everything to 30th Street Station. They allowed thru passengers to ride any local from 30th Street to Suburban Station.

 

[TheCrescent]

Not for free, but for a flat fare.
https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Questions/Tickets#Connection

Looks like I'm wrong.

Belgian railways used to allow Thalys passengers to ride on a local Belgian commuter train to any Belgian station for free.

 

[slasher-fun]

It was only for passengers who purchased a Thalys ticket to "TGB / Toute gare belge" (any Belgian station), more expensive than a ticket for a trip to a specific Thalys station in Belgium. They've been replaced by the "Connection" ticket, which is basically the same offer but with specific exchange/refund conditions.

 

[TheCrescent]

so I was wrong again.

but why can’t Amtrak offer the same thing? “ALS” ticket: any LIRR station in Long Island, for example?

 

[MARC Rider]

SEPTA is probably footing the cost. Amtrak paying commuter railroads for connecting passengers' fares would likely be very expensive to Amtrak.

This practice really doesn't cost SEPTA anything. It's not like they add additional trains to handle the extra traffic between 30th St. and Jefferson caused by all those Amtrak passengers.

 

[Cal]

In Socal we something similar, but the opposite (that made no sense). Metrolink monthly pass holders can ride select Surfliner services and some Surfliners stop at Metrolink stations to allow for Metrolink passengers to board, but you can't book an Amtrak ticket to these stations.

 

[MARC Rider]

While Amtrak (particularly the Acela) markets itself as the best choice for trips between downtowns, the pandemic has surely reduced the number of trips to downtown areas and increased the amount of business done in suburbs.

SEPTA in Philadelphia allows Amtrak ticketholders to ride SEPTA trains between a few stations in Center City Philadelphia. There are plenty of other commuter railroads that allow intercity passengers to ride for free. Belgium, for example, allows riders on certain intercity high-speed trains to ride Belgian commuter trains (SNCB/NMBS) for free to any Belgian station.

So why doesn't Amtrak expand partnerships with commuter railroads to be nationwide? I can see the ads in the NY metropolitan area: "Hey, Long Islanders! Book your Acela ticket and start from any LIRR station for free, for a seamless trip!"

In days of old (well, prior to May 1, 1971, anyway), in Philadelphia, all the intercity trains serving Philly were operated by either the Penn Central (mostly) or the Reading. You could ride the intercity trains with the same tickets used for the commuter trains. In fact, I would do my youthful joy riding on various NEC intercity trains to Trenton, Wilmington, or Paoli using the same discount commuter round-trip ticket that I used to ride the SEPTA-subsidized local commuter trains back to the city. The only exception was if I wanted to ride a Metroliner, which was an extra fare, and I think required a reservation.

This was also true for the Reading. Their "intercity" trains that served Reading, Pottsville, and Bethlehem took the same tickets to stops on the commuter system (i.e., Norristown, Jenkintown, etc.) as the SEPTA-subsidized commuter trains. I'm not sure, but those "intercity" Reading trains may have been subsidized by SEPTA, too.

Back in those days, there was no MARC train between Baltimore and Washington, and there were only 1 or 2 local trains a day. Anyone who wanted to do the Baltimore-Washington commute would probably do it by riding one of the intercity NEC trains.

The other thing Penn Central (and the PRR before them) did was sell through tickets, so you could travel from anywhere in the system to a commuter stop on one ticket. I do remember buying a through ticket from Baltimore to Merion, PA when I was a kid. (I had a nice dining car breakfast on that ride, an advantage of the longer travel times of the era.) The ticket was in two parts, and I I changed at 30th St. to catch the Paoli Local and used the second part of the ticket. I don't know how much more expensive the through ticket was compared to the Baltimore-Philadelphia fare. But even if they wouldn't offer free rides on the commuter railroads, it might be nice if Amtrak and commuter lines could jointly sell through tickets. It would save the hassle of figuring out strange TVMs in unfamiliar locations.

 

[jis]

I wonder if Arrow will blow up if all the commuter stations associated with the NEC were added to its station inventory. Just curious. @Trogdor might know from back then. I am sure a few of the ex-AU members who worked on the eTicket project and put together the iPhone App for it would have some idea.

There will also be the inevitable and always fascinationg discussion about revenue apportionment.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

There will also be the inevitable and always fascinationg discussion about revenue apportionment.

This is what I was wondering. Who's actually paying for this option? The commuter rail, Amtrak, or more likely the Amtrak customer.

 

[TinCan782]

In Socal we something similar, but the opposite (that made no sense). Metrolink monthly pass holders can ride select Surfliner services and some Surfliners stop at Metrolink stations to allow for Metrolink passengers to board, but you can't book an Amtrak ticket to these stations.

I do know, at least while I was still commuting via SoCal Metrolink, that Pacific Surfliner conductors would scan my Metrolink monthly pass when I rode home with Amtrak instead of Metrolink. I'm guessing there is some kind of "charge back" in their system to handle whatever fund exchange needs to take place. Even if no money changed hands, they could still account for how many passengers were riding in this manner.
All of this would be buried somewhere in their cooperative agreements.
The program is called "RAIL 2 RAIL®".
https://metrolinktrains.com/rider-info/general-info/rail-2-rail/

 

[Trogdor]

I wonder if Arrow will blow up if all the commuter stations associated with the NEC were added to its station inventory. Just curious. @Trogdor might know from back then. I am sure a few of the ex-AU members who worked on the eTicket project and put together the iPhone App for it would have some idea.

There will also be the inevitable and always fascinationg discussion about revenue apportionment.

I don’t think Arrow would blow up, per se, but you’d need to find three-character station codes for all of them.

Besides needing to get all of the commuter agencies and Amtrak on a similar ticket validation platform, you’d also need some way (for single-ride tickets, at least) to ensure all schedule info is reasonably up-to-date. That would be a bigger ongoing challenge, unless/until some kind of data integration could be established using some kind of common protocol.

Then there’s that whole deal with how connections show up…

 

[slasher-fun]

The 3-letter code is not the most complicated thing, there are 17500+ codes available, and for trips in the core of the cities you can use a specific "metro" code (like NYC for NYC Metro, WDC for DC Metro, etc.)

As for the cost, this could be a rather cheap option available when booking the ticket: for an additional $4, your trips to/from Amtrak stations are included, provided they're in the suburban area of said station: in Europe, that's something Deutsche Bahn is doing with its "City ticket" for example City-Ticket and City mobil: Your local transport tickets.

But the main issue is wherever access to the platforms is not barrier-free* (most subways / some regional trains): until integrated e-ticketing exists**, the passenger will have to find a ticketing agent at the station to obtain a "free" ticket valid for the trip, and it's going to be an extremely long queue when a full train arrives in major stations.
* In Germany, every subway/tram/bus/train network is 100% barrier-free, so that's not an issue for Deutsche Bahn
** In the Netherlands, most major train stations aren't barrier free, but every turnstile has a reader capable of reading the bar/QR code of any ticket, whoever issued them.

 

[jis]

I don't think there are any insurmountable technical problems that cannot be solved given enough money. Solving the administrative problems, including revenue apportionment are an entirely different matter with much politics and eventually political will involved.

 

[Ryan]

I don't think there are any insurmountable technical problems that cannot be solved given enough money. Solving the administrative problems, including revenue apportionment are an entirely different matter with much politics and eventually political will involved.

Which invites the question, "why would Amtrak have any motivation to do this?" - tying the thread together to the "unified transit fare" thread, I'm skeptical that someone is choosing not to take Amtrak because it's too hard or too expensive to buy a Metro ticket or a MARC ticket to complete their journey in the DC area.

It's one of those things that sounds cool, but wouldn't stand a chance to crack the top 100 in "things Amtrak can do to be better".

 

[jis]

It's one of those things that sounds cool, but wouldn't stand a chance to crack the top 100 in "things Amtrak can do to be better".

My guess is that politically it won't see the light of the day at least in my lifetime, at least in the US, for the reasons you mention. And specially Amtrak, which find it hard to motivate itself to provide reasonable food on its trains, this is a bridge way too far. There are a zillion other things that Amtrak needs to fix first.

Having said that, there may be some specific high runner opportunities that can always be handle through the Thruway mechanism like is done between NJT and Amtrak on the Atlantic City Line, or with SEPTA on the grandfathered Center City access.

 

[Deni]

Even if not one of the more important things that Amtrak needs to do better, it seems like it should be such an easy thing to do and would have a pretty good payoff from a customer experience point of view. I'll be returning to Germany in July (first international trip since COVID started) and it is great knowing that when I go from Berlin to Munich that I can just jump on the S-Bahn from my hotel to the Hauptbahnhof to grab my train to Munich, then in Munich go straight to the platform for the U-Bahn or S-Bahn I'm catching to my hotel there.

The convenience of that service really great even without it being "free" with just any ticket. It's great to not have to go and find the ticket machine and fumble with your money/wallet when you're carrying luggage and you've got your kid in tow, etc. It's a high return in customer satisfaction on a pretty small investment in convenience. But like so many things here the political willpower for this is just not there. And the political/administrative divisions in our transit systems here is just maddening.

 

[cirdan]

Which invites the question, "why would Amtrak have any motivation to do this?" - tying the thread together to the "unified transit fare" thread, I'm skeptical that someone is choosing not to take Amtrak because it's too hard or too expensive to buy a Metro ticket or a MARC ticket to complete their journey in the DC area.

It's one of those things that sounds cool, but wouldn't stand a chance to crack the top 100 in "things Amtrak can do to be better".

i think its more in the league of, why does Amtrak provide freebies at all . Such as free coffee or whatever in passenger lounges .

A ride on a short haul commuter train costs about the same as a coffee so if one type of freebee is ok, why not the other ?

in fact probably the commuter ride costs Amtrak less in real terms because amtrak needs to staff and stock a passenger lounge regardless of how few people use it and the real estate could be otherwise generating rental income , whereas a commuter train ride financed through a chargeback arrangement doesn’t entail much in the way of fixed costs or inventory risk for Amtrak .

 

[Trogdor]

i think its more in the league of, why does Amtrak provide freebies at all . Such as free coffee or whatever in passenger lounges .

A ride on a short haul commuter train costs about the same as a coffee so if one type of freebee is ok, why not the other ?

in fact probably the commuter ride costs Amtrak less in real terms because amtrak needs to staff and stock a passenger lounge regardless of how few people use it and the real estate could be otherwise generating rental income , whereas a commuter train ride financed through a chargeback arrangement doesn’t entail much in the way of fixed costs or inventory risk for Amtrak .

Free coffee in a lounge likely costs Amtrak less than 50 cents/cup (and Amtrak isn't providing lounge access and staffing it *just* for the coffee, so the real estate and employee costs are not really going to change). I doubt, practically speaking, there is a commuter train ride out there that is going to be anywhere near that low in terms of a per-passenger fare.

 

[cirdan]

I doubt, practically speaking, there is a commuter train ride out there that is going to be anywhere near that low in terms of a per-passenger fare.

I doubt Amtrak will be compensating for the regular fare but can probably cut some special deal.

 

[Ryan]

Free coffee in a lounge likely costs Amtrak less than 50 cents/cup (and Amtrak isn't providing lounge access and staffing it *just* for the coffee, so the real estate and employee costs are not really going to change). I doubt, practically speaking, there is a commuter train ride out there that is going to be anywhere near that low in terms of a per-passenger fare.

This, plus serving coffee is simple. Buy pot, insert coffee.

Negotiating agreements with other rail companies and figuring out the mechanics of providing people with Amtrak tickets whatever fare mechanism is used for various commuter agencies is... less simple.

 

[MARC Rider]

Amtrak has (or had) a deal with MARC where they let MARC monthly passholders ride a few select northeast Regionals between Washington and Aberdeen. When I started riding, they had some deal where you could buy "step-up" tickets between Baltimore, BWI, and Washington. I would have liked it if they had a deal to allow MARC passholders to ride the Northeast Regionals between Washington, BWI, and Baltimore. It would have allowed MARC to open up more seats on the local trains to people going to local stations, and Amtrak, even if all they got was the much cheaper MARC fare, would have filled empty seats between Washington and Baltimore. And, believe me, the local trains would have benefited from getting the Baltimore passengers on to Amtrak -- there was a while when the MARC locals were standing room only.

 

[neroden]

I don't think there are any insurmountable technical problems that cannot be solved given enough money. Solving the administrative problems, including revenue apportionment are an entirely different matter with much politics and eventually political will involved.

Amtrak has shown a disinclination to solve very simple technical problems -- as in, they have not hired the IT people necessary to fix website problems or produce timetables -- so when the administrative problems are severe enough, there is never enough money to solve the technical problems