More than 24 million passengers traveled on Amtrak in Fiscal Year ’03 (ending September 30), the highest annual ridership ever experienced by the nation’s intercity passenger rail service in its 32-year history.
Despite a number of adverse conditions this year, including a lagging economy that has hurt the travel industry overall, the Iraq war, the Presidents’ Day blizzard, the Northeast blackout and Hurricane Isabel, Amtrak’s ridership topped the previous record of 23.5 million passengers set in 2001 and was 2.7 percent better than last year’s result of 23.4 million.
Long-distance trains showed substantial improvement over last year, with those in the Eastern region of the country improving ridership by 3.8 percent and those in the Western region improving by 6.6 percent. The most substantial increases were experienced by the Pennsylvanian (up 64 percent) due mostly to a change in routing; the Texas Eagle (up 20 percent); the Silver Meteor (up 15.2 percent); and the City of New Orleans (up 14.5 percent).
Ridership on shorter distance routes in the West increased by 11.7 percent over last year, while decreasing slightly in the East (-1.6 percent). The Pacific Surfliner, serving Southern California, showed the largest increase among these trains, with a gain over last year of 26.3 percent. Several Midwest trains, the Pere Marquette (up 22.1 percent), the State House (up 13 percent) and the Illini (up 11.4 percent) experienced the next largest increases in passengers. In the East, Regional trains carried more passengers than any other Amtrak service in the country, increasing from 5,760,499 last year to 5,974,806 — an increase of 3.7 percent. While a reduced number of departures (7,686 in FY ’03 vs. 8,272 in FY ’02) resulted in a decrease in Acela Express ridership from 2,473,921 to 2,363,454, per-departure ridership on Acela Express actually increased slightly from 299 to 307.
Amtrak attributed the overall positive results largely to its “back-to-basics” approach to winning over passengers, begun earlier this year.
Among the back-to-basics initiatives undertaken by the railroad have been:
January fare rollbacks and a newly introduced straightforward pricing structure for passengers. The rollback, combined with national marketing offers, contributed to strong ridership in the following months. Because the new lower fares are in effect indefinitely, Amtrak is continuing to experience higher ridership today.
In April, Amtrak reduced fares for Acela Express travel between Boston and New York, capping business class fares at $99 each way. This resulted in a 13 percent increase in ridership in the five weeks following the reduction (compared with the five weeks prior to the reduction), a trend that continues today.
Also in April, on the Springfield Line between New Haven, Conn., and Springfield, Mass., Amtrak increased the number of trains from 11 to 16 and lowered fares by an average of 54 percent, which resulted in a ridership increase of over 30 percent in the five months that followed.
In California, thanks in part to a new ticket cross-honoring agreement with Metrolink, the commuter agency, Amtrak ridership on the Pacific Surfliners ended the year up 26.3 percent from FY 2002 levels.
Other improvements in service introduced during the year included new menus on the long-distance trains so that passengers traveling more than one night would have more dining options.
Additionally, Amtrak’s award-winning automated voice response system for 1-800-USA-RAIL, called “Julie®,” was upgraded to handle credit card transactions and more complex reservations. Julie currently satisfies approximately 40 percent of all callers to the toll-free number.
The full press release, including a table showing ridership by route, can be found here on Amtrak's website.
