Amtrak, Auto-Train, and Vacation Travel to Florida: Little Trains that Could

Abstract

This paper examines whether Amtrak and Auto-Train altered the demand for vacation travel to Florida by train. A profile of tourist arrivals by train reveals a downward trend until inception of effective Amtrak and Auto-Train service; the trend then reverses. A travel demand function is postulated to include income, price, and interaction dummies which allow for consequences of the trains. Because of multicollinearity, the equation is estimated by ridge regression, the results suggesting that the trains modified both income and price effects in the function. Likely implications of Amtrak and Auto-Train for Florida's leisure industries are considered.