Swadian Hardcore
Engineer
Then Dave has probably been counted as eight riders when in fact it was one! :giggle:
What % of the population takes Amtrak?
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I am saddened at how low that # is.
Don't be sad. It's a record number.
Hopefully, the word will keep spreading, and the numbers will keep going up. Think of it exponentially.
By the end of the 1920's Pullman by itself carried about 39 million passengers. That was about 1/3 of the US population. If we add in all passenger rail at that time the figure comes out to about 50-55 million passengers or roughly close to half the US population.
After that the US national highway systems began to be built, the airports offered faster transportation and a serious loss of rail passengers began. Today 31 million people ride Amtrak and that represents a 50 yr high point in rail travel. But about 1/3 of this total is NEC ridership. If you add in all the local Amtrak routes it may account for 2/3 of Amtrak business.
If you add Amtrak's passenger rail ridership and combine it with the metropolitan commuter lines ridership the number of people that ride trains is significant. I don't have the number but I would venture to say that 25% of the population rides trains.
After that the US national highway systems began to be built, the airports offered faster transportation and a serious loss of rail passengers began. Today 31 million people ride Amtrak and that represents a 50 yr high point in rail travel. But about 1/3 of this total is NEC ridership. If you add in all the local Amtrak routes it may account for 2/3 of Amtrak business.
If you add Amtrak's passenger rail ridership and combine it with the metropolitan commuter lines ridership the number of people that ride trains is significant. I don't have the number but I would venture to say that 25% of the population rides trains.
OlympianHiawatha
Engineer
With airlines doing everything they can to discourage passengers from wanting to fly, ranging from 28" pitch paper thin seats to vigorish that doubles the airfare, I easily see more and more Leisure-oriented travelers discovering the train provided they have an easy way to discover it.
I've only been in the Miami station once in my life; and I didn't take a cab to get there. Mom & I walked from the TriRail station.
In 2009, the latest data, American's took 4.423 billion rides on trains in the US. That doesn't include Amtrak, but it does include subways, L's, commuter rail, & light rail. That's more than double the record low for ridership which was 1.921 billion back in 1973.
Pure curiosity: could there be any particular reason for that? Was that around the time of the oil crisis? (I would think that would cause higher usage of commuter rail, though, not less.)
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Nathanael
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And nearly every time I've taken a round trip on an airplane, I've been counted as a minimum of four riders -- because it's always at least two hops to anywhere. Usually it's three hops, and I'm counted as six riders. On one memorable occasion, it was four hops and I was counted as eight riders -- and that was just going to a single convention for a weekend and back. An international trip sometimes counted me as 12 or more riders.
Yes, this is comparable. This is pretty much standard for measuring trips, actually.
That was around the time that we stopped ripping out existing passenger rail lines and the tide started to turn back towards building new ones. Ten years later was when President Ronald Reagan created the Mass Transit Account, part of the Highway Trust Fund, to help fund new transit projects.
The gas/oil crisis which hit in 1973 was probably part of the turning point in some sense, in that we started to realize that having all our eggs in one basket wasn't a good idea. But it didn't create much of a spike at that time, since there simply wasn't many trains left to ride at that point in time. Outside of the major cities like NY, Philly, Boston, & Chicago which never really threw away their trains; most cities had nothing to turn to.
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Nathanael
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AlanB's summary is correct. Basically, rail had been left to rot or actively ripped out from 1950 through 1973, roughly speaking. There just weren't many services left to ride, and those which were there were in terrible condition -- the stories of the condition of the NYC subway are horrifying. Even in NYC, the government had been actively dismantling mass transit lines, with the Third Avenue El in the Bronx being torn down in 1973.
From 1965 to 1973, a number of systems had been bought out by governments after the private operators collapsed, but even most of the governments saw their role as managing a declining, shrinking system. Even in the few cases where far-sighted government officials saw the opportunity for expansion, they often had decades of deferred maintenance to catch up on first, since the private operators had generally asset-stripped and run their operations into the ground before declaring bankruptcy or selling out to government. Frankly, this issue of deferred maintenance is *still* the case for most of our passenger rail systems.
After 1973, the attitudes changed. Urban rail lines were built, rather than being ripped out; I can't think of an urban passenger rail line which was removed after 1980. In the broader intercity arena, railbanking started in 1983, and the mass abandonments of ROW ended.
From 1965 to 1973, a number of systems had been bought out by governments after the private operators collapsed, but even most of the governments saw their role as managing a declining, shrinking system. Even in the few cases where far-sighted government officials saw the opportunity for expansion, they often had decades of deferred maintenance to catch up on first, since the private operators had generally asset-stripped and run their operations into the ground before declaring bankruptcy or selling out to government. Frankly, this issue of deferred maintenance is *still* the case for most of our passenger rail systems.
After 1973, the attitudes changed. Urban rail lines were built, rather than being ripped out; I can't think of an urban passenger rail line which was removed after 1980. In the broader intercity arena, railbanking started in 1983, and the mass abandonments of ROW ended.
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The turnabout actually started in the late 1960's with the commitment to construct BART - the first all-new heavy rail transit system in the US in about 50 years. BART opened in 1972, followed by Washington DC Metro (1976), Atlanta MARTA (1979) and Los Angeles Metro Rail (1990). Washington Metro is now the second busiest heavy rail transit system in the country, BART is fifth, MARTA is eighth, and LA Metro Rail is ninth.
By the way, over half of all rail trips in the US are taken on the New York City Subway system - over 2.5 billion in 2012. No other system has over 5% of the total.
By the way, over half of all rail trips in the US are taken on the New York City Subway system - over 2.5 billion in 2012. No other system has over 5% of the total.
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To update your data, the total for 2012 was 4.676 billion "unlinked" rail trips (unlinked meaning transferring to another vehicle is a separate trip). 2.545 billion of those trips (54%) were taken on the New York subway system.
APTA 2012 Ridership
Bill,
Thanks, I'm aware of that report, but I don't rely on it for this particular subject. I've found that it doesn't always match the historical records for total ridership, seems that there are often revisions. I was pulling my data from this APTA report. And so far I haven't seen a 2012 version.
Thanks, I'm aware of that report, but I don't rely on it for this particular subject. I've found that it doesn't always match the historical records for total ridership, seems that there are often revisions. I was pulling my data from this APTA report. And so far I haven't seen a 2012 version.
the_traveler
Engineer
That was when I started riding trains regularly.
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Haha.That was when I started riding trains regularly.
Thanks, everyone. That was great information.
I'd be willing to bet that the record low for passenger rail ridership in the US was 0, which was probably achieved in 1776, and every year thereafter until whenever in the 1800s trains started carrying passengers.
Even after that, I'd highly doubt they reached 1.9 billion rides for quite some time.
Swadian Hardcore
Engineer
Most of you all know that I'm walking away from the train, so I'm not gonna be contributing to those figures anymore.
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Guest
Guest
All modes of transportation count all passengers internally, but Amtrak uniquely reports "ridership" as counted this way. I don't recall any airline monthly or quarterly report with a "ridership" number reported. Airlines report load factor, which takes into account capacity increases or decreases. Amtrak could increase capacity on a route by 100%. Their load factor could actually go down in this scenario, but if one extra person rode this route, they would report a "ridership" increase.
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Nathanael
Guest
I've seen such reports from (a) airports and (b) the FAA. It's standard.
Airline stockholder reports don't report ridership because stockholders don't care. Airports and the FAA care, so they report ridership.
OlympianHiawatha
Engineer
I was reviewing some of the aircraft manufacturer sites a few weeks ago and noticed in Seating Configuration data most were offering a High Density configuration with pitch as tight as 28 inches. Thirty is already beyond uncomfortable, especially for more than a 60 minute flight.
Yes, the US DOT issues press releases on a regular basis with the airline and airport passenger counts. Here is the most recent one: June 2013 U.S. Airline System Passengers Up 0.7% from June 2012. If one looks at the chart on the press release carefully, you can see that the ridership for peak summer months in recent years are still below the 2008 peaks.
The Bureau of Transportation statistics, which generates a huge number of statistics as one would expect, has monthly data for total passengers, number of flights, revenue passenger miles, available seat miles, and so on. One reason why the US airlines may not put passenger counts front and center in reports is that the total number of domestic flight passengers is still below the CY 2007 peak of 679 million. The load factor is up because the total number of commercial airline domestic flights was down from 10.04 million in CY 2005 to 8.44 million in CY 2012. The commercial air carriers monthly totals back to 2002 can be found here if anyone is interested.
Obviously a lot more people take airline flights than take Amtrak. But commercial air travel in terms of passenger flights for domestic travel is still below the 2006 and 2007 numbers while Amtrak is showing growth. In 10 or 15 years, if Amtrak continues to grow in ridership and other intercity services start up such as All Aboard Florida, CA HSR early segments, Desert Xpress, and perhaps other HSR corridors such as Dallas to Houston, the gap between intercity train and domestic airline passenger numbers will be markedly smaller.
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While it is a possible configuration, it is not the commonly purchased configuration. I'm not aware of any major carrier with less than 30 inch pitch even in regional jets. The fact that ultra discount carriers like Spirit use a 28 inch pitch does not make it the industry norm any more than the seat pitch and comfort on an NJ Transit train is the norm for rail travel.
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