Ticket Office and Station Closings

And why must our public-funded (yes that includes capital funds) railroad only provide premium service?

Mr. Awe, the bottom feeders go to the bus lines that pick up and drop you off at a street corner, unheated or cooled, and only with what security a municipal police force can provide.

Heat/air and security costs; <4hr BOS-NYP v. 4.5h at best as well as the ability to walk around, purchase food and intoxicants that are prohibited aboard busses, also costs.

That is why in the Corridor Amtrak does not have a product for the bottom feeders; others do.

WJAR news10 article on Westerly Station being closed.
Passengers will have no access to the station, until a
tenant is found.

http://turnto10.com/news/local/amtrak-c ... n-building" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Westerly, RI may have closed...
https://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentS ... 1642669473" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


But Mystic, the next station to the west, has reopened after being closed for a year+....
http://www.thewesterlysun.com/news/ston ... d-act.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And Mystic is even open with more expanded hours than the previous "tenant". So there is hope for Westerly.

On a related note, to save costs, could stations jointly served by AMTK and a commuter line consolidate a ticket office? For example at Trenton the NJT agents could sell Amtrak tickets (as at Princeton Junction, New Brunswick and Metropark), eliminating two separate ticket offices. At Stamford MNCR station agents could do the same and the SEPTA ticket office at Paoli could also well.

R36 Combine Coach wrote:On a related note, to save costs, could stations jointly served by AMTK and a commuter line consolidate a ticket office?

That certainly makes sense at less busy stations, but I suspect that union agreements may be the obstacle rather than the required cross-training on two different ticketing systems.

Worth noting that this is already done at Boston North Station by Keolis (MBTA "Commuter Rail") agents for the Downeaster.

TomNelligan wrote:Amtrak is a service business. Part of that service is providing on-site agents to assist customers at busy stations. Some folks here seem to want Amtrak to join the discount bus lines in a race to the bottom as regards customer service, even though Amtrak's ticket prices are a lot higher. If the question is whether Amtrak can exist without live ticket agents, then sure, they can. But I view it as a question of whether they should, and to me the answer is a clear no. The higher price I pay for a train ticket versus a bus ticket between Boston and New York goes for amenities, and I would consider staffed station to be one of them. One-train-a-day stations in the hinterland are a different case. In those cases, a station host who opens up for an hour or so would be fine in most cases.
!

Exactly.

You can cut, cut, cut. And along the way, you will drop customers. The problem is, with the small cuts, its incredibly hard to tell when you reach the point of "woops we cut too much". At that point, it costs a ton more to gain customers back.

I think its important to note that low-cost Greyhound still offers ticket agents at all major cities, and even secondary outposts like Newark, providence, and I believe Worcester (havent been there in a few years).

Incidentally, Megabus does have a staffed ticket office in NYC, and BoltBus does accept cash fares on a standby basis. And while those lines do treat customers to the sidewalk experience in NYC, with no shelter, they do have 5+ staff at the location all day answering questions and directing people. It's not a "wait by the sign and hope your bus arrives" situation.

This depends on your market and your target. Younger passengers are typically cool with not interacting with people. The airlines are doing away with front line employees. So are a lot of the stores. Apparently, I work part time at a grocery store these days. I know because cashiers often stare at me when I'm standing there....waiting for them to bag my stuff. They're looking at me as if to say "you haven't bagged this stuff yet???"

Meanwhile, younger people avoid the staffed lanes entirely. Unfortunately, that's the way things are heading. Ticket agents are not really producing enough revenue to justify their existence. Does a station like Westerly "really" need a customer service agent to open the station? There are plenty of stations that do not have any sort of presence.

AS long as there are options, I consider a sign of the future. There is another station on the corridor that is on alert and this station is pretty darn busy. We'll see what happens.

Stumbled upon this in a different forum...

My daughter's EWR-BWI flight was cancelled this morning and the United Service Desk gave her a boarding pass for Amtrak to BWI train station. When she got on the train the conductor told her it was not good for the trip and she had to cough up $134. Surely, this should have been covered by United. Who is it best to talk to about reimbursement, Amtrak or United Customer Care?

Rule 120.20 (aka Rule 240) is an endorsement of the ticket coupon to Amtrak. I presume the UA agent printed what is the equivalent of an FIM, which an Amtrak ticket agent would have to convert to an eTicket to "pay for" the reservation.

Now that Amtrak has closed their EWR ticketing office, this plan was doomed from the start. The UA agent needed to call Amtrak and get them to accept the ticket before sending your daughter to the railway station.

Looks like UA customer service was quite generous in their response, so I'm glad this all worked out in the end.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-a ... a-120.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The future, I think, will call for something in between a mere caretaker (unlocking the doors and flipping on the lights) and a agent focused on selling tickets. Having on hand someone who can check and load bags, provide information, tend to the station building, and even deal with the occasional ticketing issues (because doo-doo always happens) seems more than appropriate. [OT sidebar: the singularity may not be quite so near in regard to everyone buying their own tickets online as many assume; try an internet surge with these terms: travel agents (what, they’re not all gone?); resurgence; and millenials].

This is is especially true in 1x/day locations. It’s baffling that Amtrak is pulling agents and discontinuing checked baggage service in places like Rugby, ND, especially after spending millions on new baggage cars. Amtrak could’ve gone the European way, and done without checked bags, but they bought a lot of new cars instead. Moreover, I will engage in stereotyping by suggesting that there may be a higher percentage of passengers in Rugby that would walk up to buy a ticket in cash than at NEC stations.

In this regard, I’m not fond of the idea of viewing individual employees as profit centers. Just how much revenue did Conductor X bring in last year compared with Engineer Y? It’s disturbing that Amtrak is looking at station agents this way, rather than taking a more holistic view of the value they may have.

Finally, a brief rant on Westerly: Pulling the agent with no advanced notice, resulting in the closure of the station building (i.e., not lining up caretaker service in advance) smacks of a cheap accounting stunt (no offense to the profession, Mr. Norman) designed to pretty up the end of the year financials more than a considered decision on staffing levels. It is, though, of a piece with Amtrak trying to hold cities hostage by refusing to move into newly built stations (which Amtrak (IIRC) urged to be built, and participated in the design of) unless new rent concessions were forthcoming. This sort of behavior needs to end.

If they've already spent the money for the year on the station agent there would be very little fiscal benefit. It might have some kind of an effect on the forward looking year.

What is the most remote Amtrak station with a Ticket/Station Agent still in operation? I'm guessing perhaps Fargo, ND but I don't really know.

TomNelligan wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:31 am

R36 Combine Coach wrote:On a related note, to save costs, could stations jointly served by AMTK and a commuter line consolidate a ticket office?

That certainly makes sense at less busy stations, but I suspect that union agreements may be the obstacle rather than the required cross-training on two different ticketing systems.

It absolutely makes sense and probably always did even when agents were busier (they weren't always busy). for ticket agents today it is diversify or die. individually it does not make sense to have an agent but perhaps between selling tickets for two agencies and perhaps parcel check agents can add enough value to be kept. even at busy stations so many people have moved online that agents are not all that busy.

Not all stations need staffing but moderate to large stations in medium to large cities should especially in more confusing stations/transit centers. Its about providing basic customer service and should not be looked at with in station ticket sales alone - not to mention that when you remove all the staffing you are reducing the accessibility of the station for those with special needs that may need baggage assistance or boarding assistance. For the most part, only at the largest stations that have dedicated red caps and baggage staff are there agents that basically are just sitting there doing ticketing all day. Otherwise, the agents are responsible for providing all station services which includes ticketing, information, customer service, red cap services, and sometimes custodial work if its an Amtrak owned facility. I can see adjusting staffing levels in stations where it makes sense and where you may not need as many agents in this world of online ticketing but I am not a fan of the "manned to completely unmanned" moves.