Getting the Price Right: How Much Should. I really do hope HSR can keep its. That capacity is the equivalent of 12 Acela roundtrips per day just for the.

Sorry but in in particular the first figure is misleading! Let us just compare ICE and TGV. In Germany, you can get the reduced price (25 or 50% lower) everytime, also if you by your ticket 5 min before your train departs. You just need a “BahnCard” (about 4 Mio.

Germans have one), which allows that rebate. In France you get reduced prices usually only if you book a longer time in advance and if you accept some restrictions (e.g.

Not rebookable). Therefore, most of the travellers in Germany experience the lower price an this more often than TGV-travellers! In addition, Cologne-Frankfurt is the most expensive OD in Germany and not representative for the whole ICE system. The Bahn card is a must have for any German who will be riding the rails on any thing approaching a once a month frequency. They give as stated 25% or 50% off most fares for the up front card cost.

It moves money around, but with any use it really shines as a product to reduce the cost of travel. I still miss mine every time I go to visit where they really nail the visitors for a hefty train fare on the ICE trains. But just like Acela vs regional or even commuter trains, ICE are by far the most expensive trains in Germany. Two friends from Long Island just opted for air over rail for a weekend trip to DC because the air fare from JFK was just $40 more than rail. All over Manhattan you can now find low-cost buses to DC, Boston, Albany and many other destinations that should be attractive for rail travel. A good point about capacity. If Amtrak can only handle 5 – 8 cars on a train, it is leaving people in the station.

In the Pennsylvania and New Haven Railroad era, it was common for trains on the Northeast Corridor to run 16 cars or longer. In reference to ticket prices — The point of this post was not to compare European or Asian fare policies, but rather to show just how expensive Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor services are.

You’re right that I didn’t mention Germany’s BahnCard — but it should also be noted that and have similar frequent voyager cards that give discounts just like the BahnCard does (among others). This proves my case even more dramatically, as the lower-than-Amtrak prices quoted above for travel in Europe and Asia — prices anybody can get, even without a discount card — are higher than what many customers pay in those countries. Meanwhile, Amtrak has no such frequent traveler fare reduction program for normal Adults (it provides some discounts to seniors, children, and AAA members), and it rarely provides the option of buying reduced price tickets, even ahead of time. In response to Philipp, I picked Koln-Frankfurt because it is Germany’s only 300 km/h line comparable to the other routes noted above (with the exception of the slow Amtrak routes).

DB has clearly made a decision to charge more for faster service. I think it’s rather silly to try to compete with air AND auto on cost. Each mode offers its own advantages. You’ll never compete with cars on cost when 4 people can travel in a car for the same cost as one. And you need to add end-point transfers to the rail cost.

One huge advantage NE Corridor trains have had over flying is the time and cost of getting to-and-from the airport at each end, whether it’s cabs, parking, etc. Ticket prices are a very limited way of comparing advantages. A more comprehensive take would be helpful. The article suggests that driving is cheaper than taking Acela, but does not give any evidence for this. If we assume that the driving distance is the same as the railroad distance (it’s probably more), then driving costs about 225 miles x $.55 per mile = $123.75. 55 cents per mile is, of course, IRS’s 2009 standard mileage deductible rate, which is considered to be an average of the total cost of operating a vehicle.

AAA has a similar comparable figure. So indeed, driving is cheaper on average, although I suspect that if one figures in the above-average insurance and repair costs of metropolitan areas, Acela is very cost competitive.

It is also cheaper to fly than to drive. The reason most people still stick to driving is inertia, fixed costs (they already own or lease a car), and last-leg destination convenience. Even a slight change in underlying factors, whether the return of $4 gas or improved local transit in metropolitan areas can tip the scale towards a huge increase in demand for train service, even at current prices.

Boris – The problem, as you alluded to, is the fact that most people don’t think about total costs when they drive their cars — they think about gas, and gas alone. In a 26 mpg car (about the U.S.

Fleet average fuel economy), you need 8.7 gallons to get between the cities. Even at $4/gallon gas, that’s only about $35 to make the trip. Compare that number to the $133 Acela cost or even $49 Regional cost, and you have a pretty good explanation for why people still drive (especially when there is more than one person in the vehicle). Even worse for trains, if you drive at the right times, you save very little time by taking the train when you count getting to and from the train station. In other words, the problem here is one of both perception and service. People need to understand that they’re paying more than just the gas when they drive their cars. But American train services need to be faster as well to provide a suitable incentive for people to switch away from driving (or taking the bus).

Note that I suggest near the end of the article that Amtrak’s existing prices — $49-133 for the New York-DC trip — would be acceptable, but only if the travel time on the train is made much quicker. I’ve taken Amtrak before, through some very scenic parts of the country. It’s a very relaxing and enjoyable trip.

I don’t take it more often primarily due to the cost. I really do hope HSR can keep its costs down for riders, as there will be threshold when people will be weighing cost vs time vs convenience vs quality of service. I can see HSR becoming like the Whole Foods of intercity transit. People would like to pay for this premier service when they can, when they can’t, they will opt for the Target of intercity transit, the bus. The Acela is a business class-only service.

You should compare it to the cost of a green car ticket on the Shinkansen, not to the cost of a regular ticket. Also, Nozomi doesn’t cost much more than the slower services on the Tokaido Shinkansen.

Riding Hikari from Tokyo to Osaka costs ¥13,750, compared with ¥14,050 on Nozomi. I think Kodama costs the same as Hikari, but at any rate it takes 4 hours, which makes it slower than the NY-DC Acela.

High-speed rail is more expensive than buses everywhere. The reason low-cost buses are more successful in the Northeastern US than in Korea and Japan is that the trains are slower, reducing their time advantage. I’m sure that if the NEC can do NY-DC and NY-Boston in 1:40 each, it will be able to fill multiple long trains at higher-than-Regional fares. Regarding comment #6 – that Amtrak has significant marketshare — Amtrak has a tiny amount of the travel market share when compared to the complete market. Amtrak has around half (or more) of the air-rail market. But buses and cars carry far more travel than air+rail combined. As an example, there are over 60 roundtrip bus departures between Philadelphia and New York each day (or about 3,600 seats per direction per day).

That capacity is the equivalent of 12 Acela roundtrips per day just for the Philly to New York market. The bus costs about $11 and takes about two hours. The train costs over $100 and takes about 1:15. Thus, you would pay about $90 to save 45 minutes. Of course, many of these buses are leaving from curbside locations, not stations, but you can see how the price comparison might indicate a problem. And then there is auto travel •.

Nice charts and enjoyable discourse. However, conspicuous by its absence are charts showing relative Farebox Operating Ratios (FOR) between different rail operations, comparable fuel (carbon) taxes between travel markets, rail capacity utilization, relative automobile ownership saturation and relative price of parking spaces. Of these functions several are co-dependent and determinant of others especially regarding the relationship between fuel taxes and rail funding. High fuel taxes provide both a useful financing tool for railroads and bends the relative operating cost functions in favor of rail. That equation drives up capacity utilization in the European and Asian rail markets.

People still own cars and drive them but operating them is much more expensive than in the US so rail is relatively more attractive. Until the US bites into the fuel tax apple rail operations cannot be sufficiently funded and will not be all that attractive economically to the mass market in the US that already owns cars and fuels them at the lowest prices in the world outside of the oil pumps with flags we call the OPEC countries. The Acela is a business class-only service.

You should compare it to the cost of a green car ticket on the Shinkansen, not to the cost of a regular ticket. An ordinary shinkansen car compares to a “business” class Acela car in terms of seats and amenities, plus there are First class cars on Acela trains that offer amenities even above shinkansen Green cars. I think Yonah’s comparison is apt. Also, Nozomi doesn’t cost much more than the slower services on the Tokaido Shinkansen. Riding Hikari from Tokyo to Osaka costs ¥13,750, compared with ¥14,050 on Nozomi. I think Kodama costs the same as Hikari, but at any rate it takes 4 hours, which makes it slower than the NY-DC Acela. A Kodama, Hikari, or Nozomi ordinary unreserved seat ticket from Tokyo to Osaka is 13,240 yen during nonpeak periods.

For reserved seats, the Kodama and Hikari are 13,550 yen and the Nozomi 13,850 yen. Add another 200 yen to each during holiday peak periods.

So you’re looking at a total price difference between the cheapest and most expensive train of 810 yen, or about US$8.75. Not a huge difference, but the graph appears to accurately reflect that difference. Not long after a small civil war had left the government of the Ivory Coast (or Cote I’voire, they prefer) completely broke and unable to meet payroll, I traveled from the Ghana border to the airport at Abidjan. In that short distance we were stopped by their Border Patrol and Immigration, Customs, Army, various police of city, province, and national forces, and did I say, the Army?

We were stopped 19 times by these uniformed officers collecting their own tolls. Well, at least they were friendly, generally quite amused to see a white man digging into his pocket to pay the fare. I was reminded of that experience driving round-trip to D.C.

Leaving the city is free, that is, the bridge and tunnel tolls are one way, but $10 of so on return. Then the New Jersey Turnpike feeds into the Delaware Turnpike which gives way to the Maryland Turnpike. I don’t recall how much was the total of tolls, NYC-DC but I’m amazed that folks posting here could forget to mention them!

Regarding the comments about total cost of car vs cost of the trip I have serious issue with saying you need to include the insurance as part of the trip costs. This is completely false.

You are paying that insurance just to have the car registered. Whether you use it for a particular trip or not. To say you must include it in the cost of a trip is just more shady accounting to tilt statistics in your chosen favor, in this case that cars are more expensive and closer in expense to the train ticket. The ALL BUSINESS CLASS train ticket at that. Electroneum ETNg Mining Calculator there. I’m a HUGE fan of the trains in this country and I have taken Acela. But I will drive this route almost every time and if I can’t drive it or don’t want to, I will look to the bus which runs very often between NYC and DC at $20 one way.

I have two people to account for in my fiancee and my self and the costs of a train that still requires multiple transfers to get on is not worth the time, effort, and expense. You want to change this and throw on a gas tax of $5 per gallon, I’m all for it. We’ve had cheap gas for too long in this country and it is just another factor on why I’m looking to get out for a while.

As for the tolls between NYC and DC, you can get around many of them if it was really important to you. Its fairly easy. So keep the push on for more and cheaper trains, but please don’t use numbers that really have no reason to be included to make your argument look better. Woody, It’s doubly ironic that there are tolls all around, but within New York City itself- that great chokepoint where cars don’t really belong- you can get around for free. Even though in theory the city has a monopoly on connections between Long Island/southern Connecticut and the mainland, it gets nothing out of it. Even those taking the tolled bridges pay only for the bridges themselves (and the MTA); they pay nothing for the roads they drive on in the city. It’s the residents (the majority of whom don’t own cars) that get stuck with the bill, the pollution, etc.

Boris — How sad but true. I’m one of the majority of households in the city who do not own a car, and rent one when I have a carful of passengers for some excursion. I strongly supported Bloomberg’s plan for congestion pricing and the later plan to toll the free East River bridges to subsidize the subway and bus system.

But we have a Fifth Column of car-crazed politicians, mostly in Brooklyn and Queens but some even in Uptown Manhattan, who stab us transit riders in the back every time we try to make cars pay their fair share. Sadly missing in the article and discussion is the question of who pays for building these systems (highways, airports, rail) vs. Who benefits by using them. Acela was paid for by billions of dollars from taxpayers. Riding it is too expensive for the vast majority of those taxpayers, therefore those who paid for it do not benefit from it (even indirectly, as it doesn’t have enough capacity to diminish congestion on the more egalitarian-priced highways). The same cannot be said about the air or highway system. Fare pricing for Acela based on supply and demand ignores this basic unfairness – the fact that Acela is only “business class” and first class is a giant slap in the face to American taxpayers.

Limousines on rails, indeed – and limos paid for by people who couldn’t even afford a bicycle. This discussion should be about more than just what to price fares in order for the system to attract the most riders; it should be about what to price fares after considering that taxpayers _already_ paid for these trains and are paying for them in operating subsidies also. Another way to think about it is this: taxes pay for roads, but not the cars on the road, or their fuel; therefore rich people drive nicer cars, but the roads can be used by anyone with a functioning car (or a bus). On rails, everything is paid for by taxes – the rails, the cars, the crew, and the farebox recovers a certain portion of the operating costs. Premium pricing on rail should reflect only the level of luxury in the car you’re riding in, not the mere fact that you’re using the rails at all, since all taxpayers should have the same right to use the rails as the roads, as we have paid for them both. Resnyc — One quibble.

It’s not correct to say that “On rails, everything is paid for by taxes – the rails, the cars, the crew” except on the NEC. All the trains outside the NEC run on freight lines that do pay heavy property taxes on their land and roadbeds — and pass some of those taxes on to Amtrak in the usage fees. So in fact, Amtrak indirectly pays local property taxes, unlike airports and highways. But I share your concern that the excitement of HSSR could lead some to back projects that end up serving only the fast-moving elite.

We should not forget Amtrak’s current customers, however un-elite they may be. Just eyeballing some trains south of D.C., it looked to me like black folks are a MUCH larger share of Amtrak’s riders than of any airlines. Obese folks too can fit into Amtrak seats while airline seats are embarrassing or downright painful for them. Retirees simply enjoying the journey and in no hurry. Young people seeing the Continental scale of the USA on an Amtrak-backpack-crash pad tour.

Do I date myself? Rough translation: Sleep on a friend’s couch.) Today ordinary people fill Amtrak’s slow and crummy trains for their own reasons. They shouldn’t be priced out and pushed aside — “Make way!” — to prove once again the verity that “The poor must go slower so the rich may go faster”.

Right on with this article. I visit the northeast occasionally, and I’ve never ridden Acela because of the $100+ fare. The regular Amtrak is also too expensive. That’s why people ride the discount buses.

It’s not because they want to be on a bus. Cut the train fares in half and the trains will be jam-packed and they’ll be adding more runs. People will pay a little more to ride a train, but not a lot more. When I visited Germany in 1998, it charged a flat per-kilometer rate for all trains, and a percent surcharge for faster trains. The basic rate is the S-bahn (stops everywhere) and Stadt-Express (skips most rural stops); these are like regular Amtrak and have no surcharge.

The InterCity trains (in the 125 mph range) have a small surcharge, maybe 5%. The InterCity Express trains (in the 250 mph range) have a larger surcharge. There is also a separate surcharge for very short trips (metropolitan). So you can choose between speed vs price.