Commuter Conformity Is Out for a Metro-North Majority

[battalion51]

While I was at work today I picked up a copy of the NY Times and saw an interesting article about Metro North. The full text can be found on the NY Times website.

Commuter Conformity Is Out for a Metro-North Majority
For the first time in the history of the Metro-North Railroad — a quintessential commuter link between the city and the leafy suburbs to the north — fewer than half of its riders are suburban commuters who take the train to Grand Central Terminal in the morning and head home at night, according to data compiled by the railroad.

Shifts in regional employment patterns and a sustained effort by the railroad to attract new types of riders and fill underused trains are major reasons. A seat on Metro-North that once would have belonged almost exclusively to suburban stockbrokers and office workers may now be occupied by an immigrant home health aide heading to work in White Plains, a retiree from Chappaqua attending a Broadway matinee or a Bridgeport, Conn., resident going to work at an insurance office in Stamford.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

Marketing. A concept Amtrak hasn't really done much with, and a concept Congress didn't consider when it made the knee-jerk flat prohibition against deep discounts.

 

[Guest]

Marketing. A concept Amtrak hasn't really done much with, and a concept Congress didn't consider when it made the knee-jerk flat prohibition against deep discounts.

I ride Metro-North daily and would love to know about any deep discounts they have. (I think their marketing consists of other tactics). As a Metro-North passenger, though, you really get the feeling that the RR cares about its passengers: from polite conductors who also are not afraid to ask not to talk on your cell-phone in your seat etc., apologies for late arrivals on every seat on the way home, surveys in the mail, the (albeit poorly-written) newsletter, etc. Just need to improve that website and get some more ticket machines in Grand Central.

 

[Guest]

I of course realize that monthlies are deeply discounted.

 

[battalion51]

Well one of Amtrak's big marketing schemes to get passengers on board was the deep discounts. Amtrak would entice passengers in by offering them deep discounts and then hope to make regular passengers out of them. Metro North has an easier time advertising though because its market is a little more contained than Amtrak's.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

And the Amtrak deep discount (rail sale) was limited to 6 to 8 seats per train per day, NOT the whole trainload. And the idea is indeed to snag some folks who haven't tried Amtrak and hopefully to turn them into regular customers. I personally know of folks that the rail sale deep discounts did in fact work that way with.