Amtrak’s eTicketing off to a smooth start

[Corrected: November 29, 2011]

As NARP reported back in August, Amtrak recently launched a pilot eTicketing program on the popular Boston-Portland Downeaster train. I’m happy to write that so far, the launch of the pilot has been a big success.

A standard eTicket, as issued by a Quik-Trak machine

Anyone who has ridden an airplane in the last decade has a general understanding of what an eTicket is—a document that serves as a physical representation of a digital record, as opposed to a value-bearing document. With eTickets, authenticity is verified via an electronic scanning device connected to a database, rather than the material characteristics of the paper ticket.

There are some significant benefits to both passengers and Amtrak to this way of storing ticket information.

Passengers will now be able to print tickets at home. Value bearing paper tickets require controlled printing environments to ensure a uniform ticket for conductors to verify. But since conductors will be using mobile scanning devices on eTickets, only the unique barcode on an eTicket is important. Passengers can provide Amtrak with their email address and simply print their eTicket from their home or work computer. This convenience is a boon for passengers who do not live close to a staffed Amtrak station and this streamlining will eventually allow Amtrak to phase-out the mailing of non-multi-ride tickets, an unnecessarily costly and time-consuming process for the company and the passengers.

The unique barcode will also allow passengers to use their smart-phone to display their ticket, obviating the need for a paper ticket of any sort. While Amtrak is still developing their final smart-phone solution, conductors on the Downeaster report that the mobile-scanners have had no problem scanning tickets on smart-phone screen (apparently, a passenger was even able to pull the email containing the eTicket on his laptop computer—using the Downeaster’s free Wi-Fi—and the conductor was able to successfully scan the laptop’s screen).

A print-at-home eTicket.

Additionally, when Amtrak tickets were value-bearing paper tickets, when lost; the process to replace the tickets can take up to six months and can involve additional charges. With eTicketing, the concept of losing an eTicket goes away, because you can re-print your eTicket on your home printer, your phone, or the nearest Quik-Trak machine.

But first and foremost, this technology will increase the safety of passengers, by providing a real-time manifest for emergency workers in the event of an accident. From the original NARP blog post on eTicketing:

Amtrak’s first responders need to have an exact manifest of passengers; know who they should be looking for and how many people are unaccounted for. Currently, Amtrak’s emergency workers are forced to rely on a manifest of who bought tickets beforehand, [combined with the ticket pouch on the conductor’s person]. But train stations aren’t like airports, with rigid and uniform passenger controls. They are often open, bustling centers of social and commercial activity or isolated rural outposts. People miss trains; or buy tickets on-board; or catch later trains with an unreserved ticket. Any delay that arises from the manual construction of a manifest from a loose assortment of ticket stubs is a delay that puts people at risk. For this reason, Amtrak should be applauded for developing this scanning capability on its perpetually inadequate capital budget.

The eTicketing technology allows conductors to place more of a focus on their primary goal: passenger safety. And by freeing up conductors from the paperwork involved in the old system, the Downeaster is seeing an unexpected windfall: richer interactions between passengers and conductors, who now have the time to communicate (it helps that the Downeaster serves as a commuter service to Boston for many people, meaning the interactions are of the daily variety).

Next Steps

If the Downeaster’s eTicketing pilot continues to move forward successfully, Amtrak plans to expand it to other parts of the country in phases. Next up would be the City of New Orleans, Capitol Corridor, and San Joaquin services. Depending on how this second phase of piloting goes, nationwide implementation could take effect as early as Summer 2012.

While many might question the deliberate nature Amtrak is using to roll out this feature—“Airlines have been doing this for years”, you might object—it’s important to understand the difficult environment Amtrak engineers are accounting for. Airlines have closed environments with controlled entry and exit points; desk scanners connected via hard wired networks; and vehicles that are carrying every passenger from the same destination to the same destination.

Amtrak has a much more diffuse environment that it operates in. The railroad has over 500 stations across the U.S., and stations range in size from the monumental Union Station in Washington, D.C., to the simple wooden structure in West Glacier, Montana. Boarding is open at most stations, with conductors checking passengers on-board. Conductors also have to work in a wireless environment, with highly variable levels of signal coverage.

Of course, these all double as reasons why eTicketing will do much to improve the passenger experience. Amtrak employees assured me they are committed to the national rollout scheduled for this summer being “Version 1.0” of eTicketing, part of a continuing effort to improve the passenger experience.

On the other hand, it is hard not to speculate how future development will be negatively affected by the threadbare Amtrak budget for Fiscal Year 2012, scheduled to be sent before the President by the end of this week. It seems inevitable that a lot of capable people dedicated to intercity passenger rail are going to be out of a job, as a consequence. It’s important to remind ourselves that when we advocate for improved funding to passenger trains, we’re not just advocating to protect existing service, but for a better train riding experience for America’s passengers.

—Sean Jeans-Gail