I’ve been a long time Amtrak rider since moving to the burbs north of San Francisco seven years ago. I must admit that I hate driving and prefer to be driven. It would be great if I could own a limousine and hire a chauffeur, but alas, I’m limited to public transportation or driving my own car.

The problem with Amtrak and generally most public transportation is that they don’t really cater to their customers. The information alliances that they’ve built with partners are zero to none. For example, how often have you jumped on Amtrak, say from Sacramento, and got to your final destination in San Francisco, without missing some type of connection? An information alliance / business development effort with the San Francisco public transit system could solve this problem in a heartbeat.

I remember one day leaving San Francisco Fisherman’s Wharf on Amtrak and arriving in Richmond, CA only to have missed my connecting BART service by 52 seconds. Yes, that’s how long it took to get from the Amtrak track to the BART track … down one set of stairs … up another. Again, an information alliance, an exchange of data … bits … would have helped me to make my connection.

The problem, I’ve been told, is that each transit authority is only responsible for their little fiefdom. Forget about customer service. Let’s just get our trains there on time … our time, that is. An information alliance with other transit authorities does not help individual company’s “on time” schedules, but it would help us, “the customer.”

I recently read an article about the slippage of Amtrak train ridership on the Capitol Corridor route. The story was written up in the Davis Enterprise. The article states that while ridership is down this year, on-time arrivals are at an all-time high. It doesn’t take a brain scientist to see how easy that is to accomplish … ridership DOWN … on-time arrivals UP?

Amtrak, like so many other public transportation systems should consider themselves as being in the “people moving business”, as Jeff Jarvis would say, NOT in the train business. By building information alliances with BART, the San Francisco Muni, AC Transit, CalTrain, and countless other transportation companies, we all might take public transportation more often. And, after all, isn’t that what we all want for a greener America?

Here’s another information alliance that can be exploited. What if when you arrived at your final destination a rented bike rack was waiting at your disposal? Or, what if a Zipcar or heaven forbid, even another public transit system that was timed to meet up with a “foreign” transit system?

There is no easy answer to this problem. But, there is no way out without an answer. In other words, we have the ability to build information alliances and data exchange. Someone has to start this business development effort in order to change the “drive my car” mentality in California.

It’s outrageous to hear companies like Amtrak boast about on-time arrivals when the real end-to-end experience for the customer is what’s really lacking. An information alliance / exchange of data and a tad bit of planning would really enhance the experience for the customer. It might even perhaps raise ridership because customers would feel confident in getting to their final destination hassle free and timely, if not “on time.”

Read more articles from David Chan.