Virgin Trains Top Service Surveys for 3rd Year Straight

For the past few years, Virgin has been providing the people of England with outstanding service on their railways. Now, through the independent research studies conducted by the railway review company Passenger Focus, their clientele are returning the favor.

Virgin Trains were voted best in class for the 6^th consecutive time in the bi-annual Passenger Focus survey, proving three years of industry domination. Virgin’s survey results yield extremely high score averages and Passenger Focus has reported an average of 91% of passengers marking “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with Virgin’s service since the beginning of the survey in 1999.

Virgin Trains have been on the up and up over the past 6 years, having doubled their number of passengers, now serving 30 million people per year. Tony Collins, CEO of Virgin Trains, applauds Virgin employees and explains that the business model is simple – “fast and frequent trains and excellent customer service”.  Collins also stressed the importance of this summer’s Olympic Games in London, which sets a stage for Virgin to showcase their world class transportation services to millions of travelers from all over the world.

Collins believes Virgin is ready for the challenge.

In addition to good customer service, the Passenger Focus survey also ranked Virgin the highest scoring railway service in personal security, spaciousness, ease of entry and exit, speed of journey, and connections with other trains.

Michael Patton has had the pleasure of experiencing Virgin Train’s service first-hand.  The POTHOS CEO agrees with Passenger Focus’ assessment of Virgin’s superb customer service and cites cutting edge technology and the progressive business plan of the company that allow for such a cool and modern travel experience. 

Public Transportation and Amtrak Update: What is Going On with High-speed Rail?

With the ongoing (and stubborn) federal budget debate in Washington, DC, it is still uncertain what areas of funding will be cut, sustained, or increased in the upcoming months and years. The governmental gridlock will have to give one way or the other eventually (won't it?) as Congress and President Obama attempt to sort out the financial woes of the American public and the country. Much of the most aggressive cutting -percentage wise- has been proposed for industries that many claim could operate (and perhaps more successfully and lucratively!) in the private sector without federal funding.

Amtrak has had a pretty turbulent history in the past 40 years since being organized under the National Railroad Passenger Association and the U.S. government in 1971 in an attempt to save the declining utilization of the rail system in the United States.

The United States currently has one of the least often used rail systems in a developed country. This could be due to a number of factors: 1.) High costs- for a ticket from New York to Philadelphia on Amtrak's Acela Express, $105.00; for a ticket on Bolt Bus from New York to Philadelphia, $13.00 (though the bus takes about two hours to the train's one). 2.) Abundant lack of readily available, convenient, affordable, and practical mass regional transit (think of areas like Los Angeles, San Diego, etc that have dreadfully slow and often unreliable mass transportation systems within the region despite the immense population and screaming need for such a phenomenon) 3.) Much of the United States has been designed around the concept of automobile travel, not a shared transportation system that is integrated into cities and connected to other hubs around the U.S. 4.) Amtrak needs to modernize and extend its accessibility to more travelers.

These fundamental issues are nearly impossible to overcome without a surge of funding in support of establishing the sorely needed regional transit systems (buses, subway, metro), improved infrastructure that stretches state and country-wide, and a push towards the long term sustainability of mass transit as opposed to most of America relying on personal automobiles to get from point A to point B.

Now for the update:

An Amtrak app is now available on iTunes that allows users to plan and book travel, modify reservations, check train status, explore stations and connect to their Amtrak Guest Rewards accounts.

Amtrak is ditching the 120 year old technology of the "ticket-punch" for checking rider's tickets. In California and New England, Amtrak is running pilot programs in which conductors are using handheld readers to scan ticket bar codes rather than the paper-punches- a move towards the 21st century.

Public transportation may offer the best possible medium for utilizing renewable energy resources like solar and wind power and helping to reduce America's consumption of foreign oil. (Take a look at this from California's Department of Energy for a closer look: http://www.energy.ca.gov/2010-ALT-1/index.html)

The House just passed a bill on Friday, September 9,2011, that has been called the "Kill-Amtrak" bill by NARP.

From the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP):

"The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation & Housing proposed slashing funding for Amtrak to $1.1 billion—a reduction of more than $357 million from what Amtrak received in FY2011. Significantly, the operating grant would be cut 60%--from $563 million in 2010 and 2011, down to $227 million. The bill requires states to pay 100% of costs of operations of short corridors. This apparently overrides ongoing negotiations among states and Amtrak aimed at complying with Amtrak’s 2008 reauthorization law."

"The High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail program—a highly oversubscribed program that has seen 39 states apply for funds to improve (and introduce) modern passenger trains for the 135 million Americans that live in a community connected to a rail corridor—was given no funding at all. Eliminating this program would set U.S. interstate transportation back by decades, severely undermining America's ability to stay globally competitive."

Fortunately for Amtrak and rail enthusiasts, it is very unlikely this bill will go anywhere in the Democratic majority Senate, especially given President Obama's freshly unveiled (Monday September 12, 2011) jobs plan.

Obama's $447 billion proposed piece of legislation includes $4 billion in funding for high-speed rail projects and states that at least 85 percent of the funds "shall be for cooperative agreements that lead to the development of entire segments or phases of intercity or high-speed rail corridors."

In addition, the proposal includes $2 billion for struggling Amtrak (much in counter to the House's latest actions above).

There is a lot of speculation about what will happen to projects like California's high-speed rail plan between LA and San Francisco, but I suppose time will tell soon enough.


For more on sustainable public transportation, check out: http://www.railvolution.org/