United States Department of Transportation
i
Methodology for determining the avoidable and fully allocated costs of Amtrak routes, volume 1 : main report
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2009-08-01
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[PDF-4.02 MB]
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Alternative Title:Methodology for Amtrak cost accounting
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Abstract:The Federal Railroad Administration tasked the Volpe Center with developing a methodology for determining the avoidable and fully allocated costs of Amtrak routes. Avoidable costs are costs that would not be incurred if an Amtrak route were discontinued. Fully allocated costs are the total costs of operating a route, including operating, marketing, general and administrative, and capital costs. The methodology was developed in cooperation with Amtrak staff and is being implemented within Amtrak’s new Amtrak Performance Tracking (APT) system. This report describes the methodology for determining Amtrak’s avoidable and fully allocated costs. Challenges faced in developing the methodology included how to allocate shared costs that cannot be directly linked to single trains, how to spread high-level costs, such as general and administrative costs, how to distribute costs to Amtrak’s ancillary businesses, how to estimate and allocate capital costs given Amtrak’s history and structure, and how to estimate avoidable costs given record keeping limitations and the fact that many Amtrak costs are shared. The methodology will provide improved estimates of avoidable and fully allocated costs as compared to Amtrak’s current cost allocation system. It simplifies the cost allocation rules, incorporates Amtrak’s ancillary businesses in the allocation process, and increases transparency.
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