There really does need to be more advertising from Amtrak. Even people who have some knowledge of Amtrak may not be familiar with the routes that come near where they live, or even that there is a train coming near them (now obviously some areas are not served or not served well by Amtrak, but that's another issue.) Most airlines and car companies focus on why you should choose *them* in their advertising, but Amtrak needs to make sure to promote rail travel in general. Promote the benefits of rail travel - the comfortable Coach seats, the ability to upgrade to a Sleeper, the lounge car you get on some trains, the dining car (and when they restore Coach access and ESPECIALLY Traditional Dining on all Long Distance trains as they sound like they're going to - promote this hard), and just the general ability to relax and not do any driving or find hotels every night or any of the other benefits of rail travel. Offer sales frequently and promote them to get people to try the train. Then finally, Amtrak has to deliver on all the exciting features they promote like Sightseer Lounge Cars on Superliner Long Distance trains and Traditional Dining on all Long Distance trains.
I think an important part of advocacy for intercity transportation that's not driving (including rail), especially for not as long distances (I'm not sure how many people drive all the way across the country but a lot of people drive LA to Vegas for example) is advocacy for local transit. Not only are there many other benefits to transit, including environmental and efficiency benefits (less cars = less traffic) and transit is just cheaper for everyone, but if people decide they will need a car at their destination, they may decide to drive to their destination and use their regular car at their destination. You not only have to provide good, affordable service on Amtrak, you have to show people that when they get to their destination they're not going to be spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a rental car to have a good trip.
I live in LA and during the earlier parts of the pandemic, LA Metro suspended fare collection on busses since they wanted everyone to board from the rear unless they needed the wheelchair ramp to help protect drivers. Then in June 2021 as part of a major schedule update they resumed fare collection, except they didn't communicate this well so everyone was confused. Then they started releasing statements about how they wanted people to pay "if possible" and also that drivers were not "quoting fares" (apparently this is a system introduced pre-pandemic where drivers are to inform and answer questions but not enforce the fare so people wouldn't attack them) and basically the drivers were just supposed to not enforce the fare at all except some were doing so. They finally just told everyone to stop paying for the time being on busses and covered the fareboxes up. They actually resumed fare collection last month although most drivers are being kind of patient or even lenient, and I have actually encountered several fareboxes that just are broken in the last couple weeks. By the way, our local Metrolink system has a deal with Metro to allow people to go to their trains using their train ticket and neighboring Orange County (the home of Disneyland) accepts both Metrolink and Amtrak tickets when going to and from the station.
In the face of severely constrained capacity, not sure of the utility of this.
I see Amtrak promoting itself on Twitter all the time, and I'm not counting Amtrak Alerts. I'm not on Facebook or Instagram, so I don't know if Amtrak's there too. I see Amtrak internet ads.
I see Amtrak promoting itself on Twitter all the time, and I'm not counting Amtrak Alerts. I'm not on Facebook or Instagram, so I don't know if Amtrak's there too. I see Amtrak internet ads.
Mind you, the ads and tweets one sees are somewhat linked to what one reads/searches/clicks so that a person could be on Twitter and the internet generally but see no Amtrak tweets or ads. However, I've also seen Amtrak billboards along the highways -- I saw one within the last couple of weeks in the vicinity of O'Hare Airport (don't remember which expressway I was on at the time) -- and there's no filter for those.
I see plenty of YouTube travel bloggers who post their Amtrak trips, and some make it clear in their videos that they get cooperation from the Amtrak marketing people.
So clearly Amtrak does advertise and market itself, just not necessarily in television ads like it's still 1978.
I see Amtrak promoting itself on Twitter all the time, and I'm not counting Amtrak Alerts. I'm not on Facebook or Instagram, so I don't know if Amtrak's there too. I see Amtrak internet ads.
Mind you, the ads and tweets one sees are somewhat linked to what one reads/searches/clicks so that a person could be on Twitter and the internet generally but see no Amtrak tweets or ads. However, I've also seen Amtrak billboards along the highways -- I saw one within the last couple of weeks in the vicinity of O'Hare Airport (don't remember which expressway I was on at the time) -- and there's no filter for those.
I see plenty of YouTube travel bloggers who post their Amtrak trips, and some make it clear in their videos that they get cooperation from the Amtrak marketing people.
So clearly Amtrak does advertise and market itself, just not necessarily in television ads like it's still 1978.
In the past 10 years, Amtrak, and train travel in general, has finally entered public consciousness in many parts of the country, and ridership trends are up in a way nobody would have expected years ago. This is due to a few factors, not limited to:
IMHO the best way to promote train travel is to find a way to post or publish the TRIP REPORTS that people write up after they've taken a train trip. Since these trip reports are written by real people based on their actual experiences (both good and bad), they'll have more credibility than an ad in a magazine or on TV. After reading a good trip report, I want to ride the train and I would image that a lot of other people would as well.
I think that’s what people mean when referring to “vloggers”
That was a new term to me, but then again, I'm a senior and don't visit or participate in the various on-line social media chat groups (other than AU). I would image that a lot of other people my age don't keep up with the vloggers either and therefore are missing out on rail travel trip reports that might otherwise influence them to use the train for their long-distance travel.
Generally speaking, seniors are perhaps the only age group in this country that still remember when train travel was a significant part of public consciousness.
I agree that many seniors can still recall (and will have fond memories) of traveling by train in pre-Amtrak days when it was still a deluxe experience. Many of these same seniors now have the financial resources to afford bedroom and roomette accommodations on Amtrak LD trains so some effort should be made to reach out to them.
I'm a senior, and I did a lot of train travel in pre-Amtrak days. While I enjoyed it a lot, I would never call any of my rides a "deluxe experience."
The "biggest bang for the buck" is reliable service that arrives and departs on time, predictable service, and more frequent trains with higher capacities. Deluxe accommodations are really not needed. The point of a government-supported service like Amtrak is to increase its ridership and market share, not to maximize their revenue with limited service. The idea is to take as many cars as possible off the road, not make money by offering less. This seems to be a hidden flaw in the computerized demand pricing. A manager can be seduced by the idea that with strategic pricing they can make more money by offering less service. Amtrak needs to be run to maximize market share, and really high fares, even for a deluxe service that's a decent value proposition, is not the way to do it.
You either misread, or misused my quoted text.
I was responding to the idea, sometimes expressed by people here as well as Amtrak itself, that different generational groups have different ideas about what's most important to them in selecting a mode of transportation.
No, those would qualify as attack ads due to all the delays
