As NCDOT begins a study on alternatives to reduce costs in rail operations, officials should also consider methods to improve revenue through increased ridership. A well supported and widely used railway system has environmental and safety benefits that should not be denied to North Carolina.
The traffic on our roads is increasing every day — this is a growing hassle, a growing danger and a growing detriment to both our health and the environment. While there is no denying that the railway system has an environmental impact, its impact is substantially less than the alternatives of road and air travel. Trains pollute up to 85 percent less than aircrafts.
The construction of parallel tracking will allow freight and passenger trains to run on separate tracks and thus substantially lessen the delays that are at times a burden to riders. While this is a step in the right direction, the NCDOT rail division will have to further improve the riding experiencing if it expects to attract customers away from their cars.
Adding Wi-Fi services to trains has been suggested and should be implemented, but NCDOT should not stop there.
Merely increasing resources in terms of the marketing of trains could be an investment that’s benefits far outweigh the costs in the long run. The correlation between effective marketing strategies and increased ridership is legitimate and it’s time that North Carolina takes notice in order to tap into this greatly underutilized resource.
These improvements could cause ticket prices to increase, but if the product is worth the cost, customers will always be there and increase ridership on trains, is nothing but good for the state.
Read the opposing viewpoint here.
