Amtrak Revenue Passenger-Miles and Load Factor
amtrak_revenue_passenger_miles_load_factor.xls
Revenue Passenger-Miles (monthly data, not seasonally adjusted)
Load Factor (monthly data, not seasonally adjusted)
Load factor measures usage by capacity. It is calculated by dividing passenger-miles (the aggregation of trip lengths for individual passengers) by seat-miles (the sum of the products of total seats available and total miles traveled for individual trains). Data are available beginning in January 2003.
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) officially began service in May 1971. Amtrak serves more than 500 stations in 46 states and operates over a network of more than 21,000 route miles. Ridership is highly seasonal, with July and August being the highest volume months. In 2000, Amtrak introduced high-speed rail service in the northeast U.S., which helped increase ridership.
| Amtrak Revenue Passenger-Miles and Load Factor | Sep-11 | Sep-12 |
|---|---|---|
| Amtrak revenue passenger-miles (millions) | 506.0 | 530.0 |
| Percent change from same month previous year | 2.2 | 4.7 |
| Passenger load factor (percent) | 50.1 | 50.7 |
| Difference from same month previous year* | 3.0 | 0.6 |
* Current month minus same month previous year. This is generally used in the case of bound numbers, such as proportions that cannot exceed 100%.
NOTE: The current value is compared to the value from the same period in the previous year to account for seasonality.
SOURCES: Revenue Passenger-Miles — U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration, Office of Safety Analysis, Operational Data Tables, Table 1.02, available at http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/ as of December 2012. Load Factor — National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak), Monthly Performance Reports, available at http://www.amtrak.com/ as of December 2012.