Last September I grabbed some data on Amtrak ridership in Maryland. Turns out that Amtrak still had old state fact sheets hosted on their website, just no links (found this out using Google), so I was able to pull up data all the way back to FY03. I've just added in the data for FY09 and thought I'd publish the data here (keep in mind that this is ridership data; where ridership = boardings + alightings, so if you buy a round-trip ticket you get counted twice):
Baltimore and BWI Rail Station dominate Maryland Station usage, but there is a sizable contingent from New Carrolton and a non-negligible usage at Aberdeen. Overall, the ridership grew by 6.2% at Maryland stations, but the individual station usage is more noisy. Ranging from Rockville's 70.58% increase to New Carrollton's -21.7%. I'd guess that changes in service patterns probably explain a lot of changes in New Carrollton, but I don't follow rail travel closely enough to know. It is really interesting that the two least used stations (Cumberland and Rockville) saw ~70% increases and both saw increased usage in FY09 vs FY08.
Another thing that you have to consider is that many, many people who technically live in Maryland use Union Station as their Amtrak station (it is the 2nd most used Amtrak station in the country). So I also took a look at how all the Maryland stations stacked up against Union Station:
Union Station saw a drop from FY08 to FY09, but certainly not as much as Maryland. I imagine this has something to do with the fact that Marylanders could drive or car pool instead of taking the train but people in DC don't own cars. Or maybe it reflects all the bank executives that had to take the train to DC for bail-outs.
Even though travel to-from Union Station dwarfs travel to-from Maryland stations, there just aren't many states that use Amtrak as much as Maryland. Nearby stations in the top 25:
#2 - Union Station (4,278,930)
#8 - Baltimore (932,827)
#11 - Wilmington, DE (664,429)
#16 - BWI Rail Station (617,349)
Interestingly enough, if you increase the geographical area to include nearby parts of Pennsylvania, you'd pick up the #3, #20, and #22 rail stations (Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Lancaster respectively). For reasons I can not fathom, Pittsburgh gets fewer passengers than New Carrollton.
Overall, as a fan of train travel, I think a healthy passenger rail system would be a great thing for this country to develop (and I believe we're taking steps in that direction) so increased ridership is great news. Perhaps someday Amtrak will even make money outside of the Northeast Corridor!
Anyway, there's a ton of interesting info available from the Amtrak Information and Facts website. Basically you can look up total ridership statistics from any Amtrak station in the country and marvel at the fact that more people use the Aberdeen Amtrak station in FY09 than use Amtrak at all in Kansas, Utah, or West Virginia. Or learn that less than 5,600 people used the single Amtrak station in Idaho.
In case you're a big nerd like me, here's the raw data on Maryland total ridership:
| Aberdeen | Baltimore | BWI | Cumberland | New Carrollton | Rockville | |
| FY03 | 40,658 | 855,675 | 541,438 | 6,831 | 229,101 | 1,961 |
| FY04 | 43,755 | 918,624 | 590,610 | 6,919 | 216,579 | 2,654 |
| FY05 | 48,047 | 980,122 | 578,554 | 7,839 | 218,184 | 2,554 |
| FY06 | 37,414 | 910,523 | 561,505 | 9,100 | 206,830 | 2,984 |
| FY07 | 38,702 | 977,379 | 587,845 | 9,182 | 204,008 | 2,905 |
| FY08 | 45,052 | 1,020,304 | 644,640 | 11,257 | 203,449 | 3,178 |
| FY09 | 44,495 | 923,827 | 617,349 | 11,484 | 179,344 | 3,345 |
| Increase, FY03 to FY08 | 10.81% | 19.24% | 19.06% | 64.79% | -11.20% | 62.06% |
| Increase, FY03 to FY09 | 9.44% | 7.96% | 14.02% | 68.12% | -21.72% | 70.58% |
| MD Total | DC | |||||
| FY03 | 1,675,664 | 3,570,920 | ||||
| FY04 | 1,779,141 | 3,744,710 | ||||
| FY05 | 1,835,300 | 3,734,287 | ||||
| FY06 | 1,728,356 | 3,859,117 | ||||
| FY07 | 1,820,021 | 4,108,569 | ||||
| FY08 | 1,927,880 | 4,489,955 | ||||
| FY09 | 1,779,844 | 4,278,930 | ||||
| Increase, FY03 to FY08 | 15.05% | 25.74% | ||||
| Increase, FY03 to FY09 | 6.22% | 19.83% |
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