September 7th, 2023, Hoang Nguyen
Florida’s inter-city private train company Brightline is poised to start service between Miami and Orlandoin a few weeks and recently cleared plans to add routes between Southern California and Las Vegas in the West. These developments could mark the end of Amtrak’s longstanding monopoly on US passenger rail service in the states.
Brightline’s expansion plans come as Amtrak grapples with operational and capacity challenges, especially among consumers in the South.
We looked at six measures of consumer perception from YouGov BrandIndex that give us an overall picture of Amtrak's brand health and compared them across regional subsets of the US population to uncover two key insights. Let’s take a closer look at the research findings.
Perceived value and consumer satisfaction are Amtrak’s weakest areas by far
Amtrak fares vary dramatically, and some consumers complain they are often more expensive than plane tickets. Consumers are also not impressed with the value that Amtrak offers and give the brand a Value score of 14.2 (out of a high of 100 and low of –100).
Satisfaction (whether a consumer is currently a satisfied or dissatisfied customer of a particular brand)
is another area where Amtrak struggles, earning a score of 13.4 among the general US population.
These two categories are the biggest detractors of Amtrak’s overall brand health, sitting well below areas such as Impression (22.9; whether a consumer has a positive or negative impression of a brand) and Recommend (19.1; whether a consumer would recommend a brand to a friend or colleague or not) and Quality (18.7; whether a consumer would recommend a brand to a friend or colleague or not).
Consumers in the South are especially critical of Amtrak
Consumer perceptions of Amtrak vary significantly across different regions of the US. While the company fares better among consumers in the Northeast, where the railroad operator is most heavily used, South consumers rate it lower in nearly every category of brand health especially in perceived Value and Satisfaction.
Brightline’s expansion in Florida is the latest development in private railways challenging Amtrak’s railway service and while the Miami to Orlando route isn’t high-speed, Brightline’s next planned project from L.A. to Las Vegas will be. The increasing competition in mass transit could prove consequential for Amtrak’s business.
What we asked consumers about Amtrak
Impression – Whether a consumer has a positive or negative impression of a brand
Value – Whether a consumer considers a brand to represent good or poor value for money
Reputation – Whether a consumer would be proud or embarrassed to work for a particular brand
Satisfaction – Whether a consumer is currently a satisfied or dissatisfied customer of a particular brand
Recommend – Whether a consumer would recommend a brand to a friend or colleague or not
Quality – Whether a consumer considers a brand to represent good or poor quality
Photo by Johannes Krupinski on Unsplash