Amtrak ending certain discounts in 2018?

[MARC Rider]

Why is It children are discounted at all? They take up the same amount of seat space as an adult.

There may be social reasons to do it, but then, of course, this should involve some sort of subsidy to the carrier to make up the loss.

In this case, without some sort of family discount, Mom and Dad might decide to drive the kids up to New York the next time, thus contributing the the already bad gridlock on the New Jersey Turnpike and affecting various clean air targets. It's already far cheaper for 4 or 5 people to travel by car than any other sort of public transportation, this may conflict with Clean Air Act implementation plans that propose to reduce VMT to improve air quality.

As for seniors and, especially, disabled, many are not able to drive, which means that making it more expensive for them may unduly restrict their mobility. (though, let's be real, the discounts are not that big.) There's a reason why transit agencies around the world offer senior and disability discounts. Again, there may be a social reason to offer incentives better enable mobility for seniors and disabled, but perhaps it's not up the the National Railroad Passenger Corporation to be funding those incentives.

By the way, there is no senior discount for the Acela Express, at least on weekdays.

 

[MARC Rider]

But the bottom line is, as long as Amtrak's ridership, load factor and revenues are growing, the rest of the carping is just that carping.

When those trends get reversed then there would be a reason to start looking at how to fix the issue.

Just IMHO of course.

My comment is just about the Northeast Corridor -- it's amazing what people will pay. (Of course, that includes me.

) When Amtrak started, a coach seat between Baltimore and Philadelphia was about $5. Just a few weeks ago, I paid a little over $50 for the same ride. I know there's been inflation, but not that much. True, the ride is much smoother and faster, but not that much faster. I think the equipment is the same, even if the seat covers have been changed a couple of times. Because I don't have a lot of flexibility for my trips and can't find Saver fares, it's not unusual to have to pay $140 or more for a trip from Baltimore to New York, a 180 mile 2 1/2 hour ride. Yet even these fares have not stopped the trains from being full. (However, college students I know no longer ride Amtrak on the NEC, they take the Bolt Bus or Mega Bus.)

What I think is happening here is that the Amtrak product (the Northeast Regional) is definitely unique compared to the other modes. It's faster, more comfortable and less stressful than driving, and it's cheaper than flying, and almost as fast, especially if you factor travel time to the airport, security checks, etc.) Thus, they can jack up the fares, and people will still be riding.

 

[BCL]

But the bottom line is, as long as Amtrak's ridership, load factor and revenues are growing, the rest of the carping is just that carping.

When those trends get reversed then there would be a reason to start looking at how to fix the issue.

Just IMHO of course.

My comment is just about the Northeast Corridor -- it's amazing what people will pay. (Of course, that includes me.

) When Amtrak started, a coach seat between Baltimore and Philadelphia was about $5. Just a few weeks ago, I paid a little over $50 for the same ride. I know there's been inflation, but not that much. True, the ride is much smoother and faster, but not that much faster. I think the equipment is the same, even if the seat covers have been changed a couple of times. Because I don't have a lot of flexibility for my trips and can't find Saver fares, it's not unusual to have to pay $140 or more for a trip from Baltimore to New York, a 180 mile 2 1/2 hour ride. Yet even these fares have not stopped the trains from being full. (However, college students I know no longer ride Amtrak on the NEC, they take the Bolt Bus or Mega Bus.)

What I think is happening here is that the Amtrak product (the Northeast Regional) is definitely unique compared to the other modes. It's faster, more comfortable and less stressful than driving, and it's cheaper than flying, and almost as fast, especially if you factor travel time to the airport, security checks, etc.) Thus, they can jack up the fares, and people will still be riding.

Depending on the section, there's also commuter rail.

 

[jamess]

Rental car? God, that is a stretch. Megabus and boltbus are dense corridor only things. Greyhound? What Greyhound?

You can get a rental car for under $15 a day in some markets.

Megabus and Boltbus exist in every market where Amtrak matters.

Considering Greyhound has more daily departures than Amtrak in most corridors, I suggest you catch up on what they offer, because everyone else has.

 

[seat38a]

When one is able to potentially sell the seat at full price instead of at a discount, the discount is just lost revenue.

If discount is to be provided as a social program there should be social way of funding it, like the French fund their discounts from the tax base of each Department (roughly speaking County in our lingo) involved. That is also the reason that they bend over backwards trying to prevent visitors and tourists availaing themselves of those discounts, and instead provide pricier alternatives for them to use.

On the Pacific Surfliner there has been talk of the removal of 10 ride tickets for multiple riders traveling together because the trains are overcrowded. At one point there was even a talking point about raising prices of the overcrowded trains and leaving them the same on the not so busy ones. At least on some lines I think shoving more people on through discounts will hurt ridership in the long run if it overcrowding scares the regular riders away after their first experience.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

You can get a rental car for $15 a day, but you have to drive the thing, and what you get for $15 a day is a tiny little buzz box that I have trouble fitting in, let alone an entire family.

Greyhound? Greyhound is dying. They are having a hellacious time getting financing to replace their unreliable and aging fleet. They are also not family friendly, and have terrible boarding and reservation procedures.

In the markets where Amtrak matters, ridership is not one of Amtrak's problems, nor is pricing pressure.

 

[seat38a]

Reading an article today about how the overuse of "discounts" by many businesses has not had the desired effect on profits that come with the increase in volume, and it is causing a re thinking of policies for many companies.

Many companies have gone to targeted discounts. The old days of throwing everything on the wall and seeing what sticks is dying out fast. Now at many companies, unless your part of the companies loyalty program, your not going to get much.

 

[jis]

You can get a rental car for $15 a day, but you have to drive the thing, and what you get for $15 a day is a tiny little buzz box that I have trouble fitting in, let alone an entire family.

Greyhound? Greyhound is dying. They are having a hellacious time getting financing to replace their unreliable and aging fleet. They are also not family friendly, and have terrible boarding and reservation procedures.

In the markets where Amtrak matters, ridership is not one of Amtrak's problems, nor is pricing pressure.

Exactly! As long as Amtrak's passenger count and revenues keep growing, no one will pay any attention to all these other things. Only when they flatten out or decline with anyone care, and one could argue, rightly so.

The marching orders from Amtrak's immediate owners is to get operating ratio to at least 100%. In order to do so it is reasonable for the management to seek out the particular customer niche which can bear the cost of the revenue stream that is necessary to get to that goal. The fact that ridership has been maintained and growing at a reasonable rate provides zero justification to chase after what we in the industry call "bad revenues".

 

[SubwayNut]

Senior discounts on local transit services (during off peak hours only) are an FTA requirement. Most local transit agencies offers them at all times though, commuter rail (and bus) lines often only offer them at off peak times.

 

[jis]

Senior discounts on local transit services (during off peak hours only) are an FTA requirement. Most local transit agencies offers them at all times though, commuter rail (and bus) lines often only offer them at off peak times.

The Federal Government and Congress are known to dictate all kinds of unfunded mandates and then are perennially surprised with some of the unforeseen (by them) financial consequences. It could help a lot if the Congresscritters actually bothered to read and understand the bills that they blithely keep voting on.

heck New York folks completely flummoxed by the fact that they almost killed off the New York Subway system by refusing to allow them to raise fares and refusing to provide any other funding to make up for it.

 

[seat38a]

Senior discounts on local transit services (during off peak hours only) are an FTA requirement. Most local transit agencies offers them at all times though, commuter rail (and bus) lines often only offer them at off peak times.

The Federal Government and Congress are known to dictate all kinds of unfunded mandates and then are perennially surprised with some of the unforeseen (by them) financial consequences. It could help a lot if the Congresscritters actually bothered to read and understand the bills that they blithely keep voting on.

heck New York folks completely flummoxed by the fact that they almost killed off the New York Subway system by refusing to allow them to raise fares and refusing to provide any other funding to make up for it.

Sounds about right. The Golden State, is the worst when it comes to dictating mandates.

 

[calwatch]

But if LOSSAN, or the CCJPA or SJJPA offer discounts it is on their own dime since Amtrak is just the contractor. The national discount policy is nationwide. I would change the student discount to an age based discount since many undergrad and grad students keep their IDs forever. People 22 and under qualify for the student discount of 15%, and a 30% discount on those under 16 traveling with an adult (of any limit).

 

[PVD]

If states wish to finance a discount program or amenity on trains that they subsidize, that is something available to them. NY, for example, offers the I love NY discount. What percentage of student travel is on state supported rather than LD trains?

 

[Jersey Jeff]

Now that Amtrak has a former airline exec in charge, when can we expect the railroad to start charging for luggage and reducing legroom in coach?

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Not immediately following an ad campaign highlighting same.

 

[jis]

Now that Amtrak has a former airline exec in charge, when can we expect the railroad to start charging for luggage and reducing legroom in coach?

There will be no reduction of leg room as stated clearly by Anderson several times.

I doubt that there will be any further change in luggage charges either, but we'll see.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Over a long enough timeline seat pitch is virtually guaranteed to be reduced. Smaller passengers simply don't need this much pitch and larger/taller people have no choice but to spend more to get what they need. I'd be willing to lose some pitch if it came with advanced seat selection and a more comfortable chair with an armrest/divider between me and the next passenger. Much of the current pitch is wasted on oversized poorly designed seats anyway.

 

[jamess]

In the markets where Amtrak matters, ridership is not one of Amtrak's problems, nor is pricing pressure.

Exactly! As long as Amtrak's passenger count and revenues keep growing, no one will pay any attention to all these other things. Only when they flatten out or decline with anyone care, and one could argue, rightly so.

The marching orders from Amtrak's immediate owners is to get operating ratio to at least 100%. In order to do so it is reasonable for the management to seek out the particular customer niche which can bear the cost of the revenue stream that is necessary to get to that goal. The fact that ridership has been maintained and growing at a reasonable rate provides zero justification to chase after what we in the industry call "bad revenues".

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Amtraks passenger count is not growing on many corridors.

Both the Capitol Corridor and San Joaquin, for example, are down year after year, and most toures are nowhere near what they were doing in 2011 or 2012.

 

[Lonestar648]

Seat selection would certainly be an attractive upgrade, but the complexity to build the program with imagining, interactive room and seat selection, might be cost prohibitive. I asked my son who is the CTO and Chief Scientist at his company, about programming this. We sat outside for a couple hours discussing various scenarios before he said it would be a lengthy process requiring a full team of programmers, test engineers, and program managers, plus additional server hardware just during the build/test process, with major addition for rollout. He said the numerous "what ifs" created quite a lot of computer processing. In the end, I was very disappointed with the possibility.

 

[jis]

In the markets where Amtrak matters, ridership is not one of Amtrak's problems, nor is pricing pressure.

Exactly! As long as Amtrak's passenger count and revenues keep growing, no one will pay any attention to all these other things. Only when they flatten out or decline with anyone care, and one could argue, rightly so.

The marching orders from Amtrak's immediate owners is to get operating ratio to at least 100%. In order to do so it is reasonable for the management to seek out the particular customer niche which can bear the cost of the revenue stream that is necessary to get to that goal. The fact that ridership has been maintained and growing at a reasonable rate provides zero justification to chase after what we in the industry call "bad revenues".

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Amtraks passenger count is not growing on many corridors.

Both the Capitol Corridor and San Joaquin, for example, are down year after year, and most toures are nowhere near what they were doing in 2011 or 2012.

Those are Amtrak California, not Amtrak, and they are not affected by the change in discounts, since California apparently has chosen to continue most of the discounts that Amtrak is rescinding. So they are irrelevant in this discussion.

The point still remains that as long as the aggregate ridership and revenues are up, they will not worry about it. They might address specific routes if they affect the big picture sufficiently, but not otherwise. This is just plain reality of what happens when the hands of a management team are forced by specific requirements by their owners, which is exactly what is going on with Congressional dictate communicated via the Amtrak Board.

 

[jebr]

Seat selection would certainly be an attractive upgrade, but the complexity to build the program with imagining, interactive room and seat selection, might be cost prohibitive. I asked my son who is the CTO and Chief Scientist at his company, about programming this. We sat outside for a couple hours discussing various scenarios before he said it would be a lengthy process requiring a full team of programmers, test engineers, and program managers, plus additional server hardware just during the build/test process, with major addition for rollout. He said the numerous "what ifs" created quite a lot of computer processing. In the end, I was very disappointed with the possibility.

There's plenty of options that are developed and in-use already. I believe there's a few rail operators in the UK that do it, and when buying a ticket on Tornado Bus (a Mexican bus line that travels through the US as well) I was able to choose my seat and it appears to block it off appropriately even for other trips that include that segment (and not block it off for trips that don't include that segment.)

It'd take some modification to make it work with Amtrak, but the backend software exists and theoretically could be licensed.

 

[west point]

Isn't programing Amtrak a real bear ? Did Some one say it was SABER based ?

 

[neroden]

Now that Amtrak has a former airline exec in charge, when can we expect the railroad to start charging for luggage and reducing legroom in coach?

There will be no reduction of leg room as stated clearly by Anderson several times.

I doubt that there will be any further change in luggage charges either, but we'll see.

It's fundamentally cheap for Amtrak to offer free luggage transport, as long as people don't walk in with the two tandem strollers and 12 suitcases that I saw on the platform in Denver once. It's expensive for airlines because it's weight they have to hoist in the air. Until Amtrak fills the baggage car, it's cheap for Amtrak. This is why there will probably be no change in luggage charges.

Seat pitch has a similar character though less so: they only gain by narrowing it when the train is actually full and they need to add a car. Before narrowing seat pitch, they can tell the coach attendants to stop hogging eight seats for themselves.

The NARP discount encourages passengers to join NARP, which benefits Amtrak in the long run...

On the other hand, the disability discount is probably not getting them many new passengers to speak of, sorry to say. People who are disabled will often travel Amtrak preferentially because it is better for their disabilities; if they can afford it, they'll pay for it. Those who aren't doing so are probably not swayed by a 15% discount. It is more of a *charitable* discount. (The same is true, only more so, of the "senior discounts" which the over-65 members of Congress love to mandate.) So although I don't like that it's being reduced -- being disabled is already very expensive and this makes it more expensive -- from Amtrak's financial point of view, it will probably actually get them more money.

 

[neroden]

Yes I have been saying that you can only raise fares to a certain point before revenue goes downhill. Some routes will surely still grow while others will face the effect of drastically changing demographics. From my observations; the audience for the LD trains are mostly middle age and senior citizens both of whom would be concerned with fares being the determining factor for their trip. The changing demographics during the next 10 years.will not be working in Amrak's favor. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. You have the demographics for the long-distance trains all wrong.

Perhaps the problem is the misleading concept of "long distance trains". The demographics on the Lake Shore Limited are one thing: a *lot* of college students who are highly concerned about fares; wealthy retired people who definitely aren't; a fair number of working-age middle-aged people who usually aren't.

The demographics on the Empire Builder are another: a *lot* of lower-class people from rural Dakotas and Montana, and I don't mean lower-class as a slur, but they were obviously very short on money; college students and professionals from Chicago to Minneapolis and from Whitefish to Seattle/Portland, who are not concerned about money; and then the retirees you refer to, who vary in their wealth.

The demographics on the Zephyr are yet again different, and they're wildly different on different segments: professionals from Chicago to Kansas City, lots of young people from Chicago to Denver, tourists and skiiers from there to Grand Junction, a lot more "cruise train" types from there to Oakland.

And you get the idea: each train has its own demographics. Much of the long-distance train ridership is dominated by younger people, though this varies by train.

On the whole, there are a lot of college students and working-class college-age non-college students who are highly concerned about fares; a discount for those under the age of 22, or 25, probably does make sense for market segmentation. Retirees on the train tend to be relatively well-to-do, bluntly, and don't need a discount to convince them to take the train.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Seat selection would certainly be an attractive upgrade, but the complexity to build the program with imagining, interactive room and seat selection, might be cost prohibitive. I asked my son who is the CTO and Chief Scientist at his company, about programming this. We sat outside for a couple hours discussing various scenarios before he said it would be a lengthy process requiring a full team of programmers, test engineers, and program managers, plus additional server hardware just during the build/test process, with major addition for rollout. He said the numerous "what ifs" created quite a lot of computer processing. In the end, I was very disappointed with the possibility.

There's plenty of options that are developed and in-use already. I believe there's a few rail operators in the UK that do it, and when buying a ticket on Tornado Bus (a Mexican bus line that travels through the US as well) I was able to choose my seat and it appears to block it off appropriately even for other trips that include that segment (and not block it off for trips that don't include that segment.) It'd take some modification to make it work with Amtrak, but the backend software exists and theoretically could be licensed.

It's been stated several times that Amtrak already has seat selection programmed into their core reservation software. Indeed that's how Acela services were originally sold before Northeasterners chose to ignore their assigned seats and pick fights instead. The flat thumb-focused front end they use today may not support it, but the back end should be fine.