USA
For Business Travelers, Is High Speed Rail Service in the Future?
Amtrak announced last week that 2011 was another banner year for train travel in the United States. The railroad served more than 30 million passengers in its fiscal year ending September 30, up 5 percent from 2010. Ticket prices were up 8 percent from the prior year.
The latest announcement reflects a significant shift toward train travel in the past decade. In eight of the past nine years, Amtrak has posted record ridership, boosting total passengers from 21 million in 2001 to north of 30 million today. While Amtrak continues to court business travelers with services like high-speed Internet access on all high-speed Acela trains as well as in select train stations, particularly along the Northeast Corridor (Boston to New York to Washington, DC), there are other factors that are driving business travelers to ride the rails.
It must certainly be acknowledged that the events of 9/11 were the initial catalyst for the shift. Particularly along the Northeast Corridor, fear motivated many to opt for rail service as opposed to air, but that quickly turned to convenience as stricter airline/government security measures and long lines often made commuter flights in the region an untenable choice. More recently, the price of gasoline has likely inspired the move to train travel. According to the Daily Fuel Gauge Report, average gasoline prices today in states along the Northeast Corridor range from $3.36 per gallon to $3.73 per gallon. In addition, a handful of companies have encouraged train travel among their employees to help achieve carbon reduction initiatives.
That said, Amtrak has pushed for improvements beyond Wi-Fi to better serve its customers. The railroad currently has a 30-year, $117 billion plan to overhaul the Northeast Corridor line, introducing true high-speed trains (and rails to support them) that would reduce travel times:
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Current
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Proposed High-Speed Rail Super Express
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DC to NYC
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2:42 hr
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1:36 hr
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Boston to NYC
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3:31 hr
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1:23 hr
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DC to Boston
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6:33 hr
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3:23 hr
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Funding for such a massive project, however, does not come easily—particularly in the United States where modern train travel has never achieved adoption rates remotely close to other regions, such as Europe and more recently Japan and soon, China. For the U.S. it is perhaps a chicken-or-egg issue: without competitive rail service, ridership is depressed. Funders want to see robust ridership before investing—and that includes the Republican Congress, which has been greatly critical of Amtrak and which sharply cut its subsidies this summer. They have a point: Along with its record ridership, Amtrak also racked up a record deficit of $560 million in 2011, roughly losing $54 per passenger according to the House Transportation Committee.
While some governments are willing to shore up operating costs for rail service, the U.S. has not shown a great appetite for it—not even for the busiest routes. For now, particularly for travelers outside the Northeast Corridor, future plans for rail travel leave them, literally, up in the air.
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Article Comments
I totally agree on the fact that when high speed train is introduced, fares for the same destination go up. And is might be correct to say that today, "poorer" persons are traveling by train, and richer ones by air. But poor people will take the bus for even cheaper and longer rides...
But where I disagree is that nobody calculates the entire cost of one and the other solution. And the point is not to setup a line between NYC and Los Angeles, but the very busy corridor of Boston, NYC, DC.
So I did the math very quickly between Boston and NYC and here are my results:
Hypotheses
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Snail train solution:
$70 fare, 2x$10 taxi fare for the train station (but you can take the $2.7 subway)
4 hour train ride + 2x20 min in cab + 30 min in advance at the station
High speed train solution:
25% inscrease in fare, 2x$10 taxi fare for the train station (but you can take the $2.7 subway)
1h23 train ride + 2x20 min in cab + 30 min in advance at the station
Airplane solution:
$200 fare, $60 + $30 taxi fare for the airport
1h20 in the air + 2x20 min to go to the runway + 30 min of late departure + 50 + 35 min in cab + 1h30 in advance at airport for check in + TSA + boarding
Results:
Snail train solution: 5h10 - $90 - 12 lbs of CO2
High speed train solution: 2h30 - $107 - 21 lbs of CO2
Airplane solution: 5h45 - $350 - 100 lbs of CO2
In addition, you can compare the Amtrak deficit of $560m / 30m riders = $19 per rider to the cost of the US trade deficit when you buy oil from foreign coutries + the trillion dollars for the war in middle eat (with the associated cost for care of veterans) + the cost of climate change (I know, many believe that it does not exist, but insurer take this risk into account) and the billions associated with the more than usual number of hurricanes and their damages on properties and economic activity.
And, as you build the new tracks, you employ US workers (and not foreign oil ones), you releive the airports for longer destinations (thus saving a lot a wasted time for travelers).
Add up what you could produce with the 3h12 you will save + the fact that you can work more easily in a train than in a plane (at a $30 / hour rate).
I think I prefer train to air to go to Boston…
It should be made clear that as the guys on expense accounts with their lap tops, and other affluent riders can afford the highest cost tickets, the rest of America's taxpayers, most with lower incomes, are supporting these riders with their supplementary subsidies. In short, and to overstate it, the poor are supporting train rides for the rich. And, believe me, high-speed rail will only exacerbate that problem.
Most people do not yet understand how devastatingly expensive the construction and operation of high-speed rail really is. It's not merely a fancier Amtrak train. It's a totally different technology. The rest of the countries in the word that now operate high-speed rail are paying dearly with all manner of support to subsidize each rider on those trains.
Most of the train advocates either haven't done their homework about high-speed rail, or stand to benefit from the construction and operation in a personal way.
Albeit slowly, the media are coming to understand what the real costs of high-speed rail will be, and are noting that the US can't afford it and doesn't need it.
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