Posts about Tourists

Vienna and Paris, Luxembourg, and many other European cities have come up with an elegant solution for tourists: an all-in-one card. One purchase gets you a no-hassle pass that works on all forms of local transportation—no fumbling with fare cards, hoarding spare change, or figuring out complex local fare plans.

The same card works for admission to local museums and sights, encouraging visitors to get their money's worth by visiting as many local attractions as they can. Often, the card also offers a discount at museum stores, restaurants, and other local businesses.

Passes are usually available at hotels, the airport, subway stops, tourist information bureaus, and even as a pre-trip online purchase. The duration often ranges from 24 hours to one week. They always come with a map or guide (like this one from Helsinki, for example) that touts the benefits of the card, lists all local attractions, and gives local businesses the chance to advertise directly to tourists.

Would it work in Washington? True, all the Smithsonian museums are free. Yet adult admission to places like the Newseum ($21.95), Corcoran ($10), Phillips ($12), Spy Museum ($19.95), Mount Vernon ($15), and the Building Museum ($8) can add up quickly.

Transit brings that total even higher: $6 rail trips around town, the $18 round trip to Dulles on the Washington Flyer, and whatever the replacement for Tourmobile decides to charge can make a Washington vacation an expensive affair. If the card is marketed well enough and sold at the right price point, tourists are likely to jump at the chance to save money, see more, and make their visit more convenient.

While the existing infrastructure surrounding Smartrip cards provides a good jumping off point for an all-in-one tourist card, the cost of adapting Smartrip to a new use could be significant. Beyond the technological hurdles, there's also the issue of coordinating and deconflicting the needs of stakeholders in the local tourism market—not an easy task to be sure.

Yet the long-term benefits for the region are clear. The card would broaden the distribution of tourist dollars by encouraging visitors to see the sights beyond the National Mall. Sales of the card could provide a more predictable source of income to local sights.

Metro would benefit by locking in a larger share of the local tourist market. And tourists would be freed to soak in the sights of Washington rather than worry about costs or logistical hassles.

If Luxembourg can make it happen, surely we can.

The average [such] trip is 2 hours, 48 minutes. 76.1% of [these] trips generate usage fees. Breaking that down between casual and members, 86.0% of casual incurred fees on these rides while 18.8% of members incurred fees.

4) Casual vs. members usage fees. 40.7% of casual rides incur fees. 3.3% 3.3% of member rides incur fees.

*Using GPS elevation data so all caveats apply. And it only factors in station-to-station elevation change.

Corey added in an email, "I've already taken the time to clean the data and get it into a usable database. So if there are specific questions you'd like to be answered I can easily put together a query to get those answers (and I'm sure the others can as well)."

What would you like to know about Capital Bikeshare usage? He can't necessarily investigate everyone's questions, but if anyone posts some interesting questions that catch Corey's eye, maybe he will analyze them for us.

As WMATA staff explained in their presentation on fare proposals, there's a tradeoff between simplicity and fairness in all fare proposals, and generally the region has chosen fairness in the past.

Metro could have a single, flat fare, but it would have to be about $2.70 per trip. This would mean that everyone who rides very long distances every day would save a bundle, while all the commuters who live just a couple stops from work and ride off-peak could see their commute costs double.

A zone system is similarly a problem, since people riding one station across a zone boundary would end up paying as much as someone crossing almost 2 whole zones. We can reduce the unfairness by creating more zones, but then the fares get more complicated. Fewer zones are simpler, but much less fair.

That's bad for regular Metro riders, but what about doing something similar for tourists? While the regular commuter probably has a SmarTrip which handles computing fares, it's a lot of work for the tourist trying to buy a paper farecard for the first time.

Since tourists are already paying for hotels, meals and more, an extra dollar or two on the fare might be less important than making the system easy to understand.

We can't make every paper farecard fare $2.70, since then everyone with a $5 commute would just buy these tourist fares instead. We could sell a single farecard for $5.20 (the current maximum Metrorail fare including peak-of-the-peak), but it's a little much to charge each tourist that much per trip even if they're taking the train from Smithsonian to McPherson Square.

But few tourists ride to Franconia-Springfield, anyway. What about a single tourist farecard which goes all the places tourists typically go? Metro could make it really easy to buy, with big, simple signs listing the cost, and a straightforward process on the fare machines. This "tourist fare" would take a rider anywhere in a certain zone, which Metro could prominently show on the maps.

At the last Riders' Advisory Council meeting, Michael Eichler briefed the RAC on a number of fare proposals WMATA's planning and budget offices are evaluating. Assistant General Manager Nat Bottigheimer showed the WMATA Board the same information in October. One of the ideas listed on the presentation is a flat fare for paper farecards. I suggested this "tourist zone" as a tweak to that idea.

Here's one possible zone. A lot of tourists go to the airport, and a lot to Woodley Park (a major destination for convention-goers and animal-seekers). The fare between these 2 spots maxes out at $2.90 (peak of the peak) with SmarTrip, or $3.15 with a paper farecard.

Any trip inside this zone costs no more than $3 (with SmarTrip), anytime. Metro could sell a "tourist card" for $3 a ride and make things a lot easier for the very high proportion of tourists who never leave this zone.

There's no incentive for SmarTrip users to buy one of these instead, since no trip costs more with SmarTrip. A few of the longer trips currently cost more with paper farecards, but that extra cost is basically the "tourist tax" today. If Metro replaced that with this system, they'd probably make more money off the tourists riding short distances and make it worthwhile to keep the "tourist fare" at a flat and easy $3 instead of a more cumbersome $3.25.

Or, perhaps there could be more zones, or different zones. For example, the zone would also work a little farther east, encompassing Potomac Ave and Stadium-Armory and not Court House and Clarendon. If we had data on how many fares are paid with paper farecards versus SmarTrip at each station, it'd be easy to determine which is a more appropriate "tourist zone."

As the planning department evaluates many different fare proposals (including some we've brought here on Greater Greater Washington just to recommend against), perhaps Eichler and the team can consider something like this. Can you come up with a better "tourist zone" system for them to evaluate?

At best we may stay at the Savoy Suites on Wisconsin Avenue or in Crystal City. While theoretically we could swing by, the logistics of getting 45 eighth graders off the bus, up the elevator, and back down preclude me from doing it on my tight schedule. And keep in mind, we're usually not anywhere this close. Most of my groups are still staying out in places like Woodbridge or Laurel.

Instaed, the bus ends up being these kids home away from home. When you leave the hotel at 7:30 in the morning and get back at 9:30 at night you need someplace to stash your bags, leave a rain jacket, leave your souvenirs, grab a bottle of water, and so on.

Additionally, teachers and chaperones have quite a bit of stuff to lug about. Many schools require teachers to have on hand medical consent forms, permission slips, contact information and other paperwork for students. The "drug bag", filled with the students' medications is often now a roll on suitcase. And many groups elect to bring bottled water with them.

This is a must-have for a youth trip to Washington. I half-jokingly challenge my groups to see if they can make it through the trip without someone throwing up. I've had groups decorate the National Cathedral, just about every room on the public tour of the Capitol, the White House, and perhaps most memorably, the elevator of the Washington Monument. These kids are away from home, with all the stress that can entail, eating unadulterated crap, staying up until three in the morning, and not getting anywhere enough fluids. Sounds silly, but staying properly hydrated is a major issue for me.

Take Arlington National Cemetery, for example. We get them off the bus at the Visitor's Center, where all the exterior water fountains (assuming they are not turned off) are barely usable with a sad, warm trickle of water. Heading inside, students end up bypassing the scant interior water fountains because there just isn't any time wait in line for them. Nor is bottled water available for purchase at the Visitor's Center (although there is at the Women in Military Service Memorial).

Then we start our two mile trek through the Cemetery, with a grand finale at the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Water fountains are available, but limited and often not working. Experienced groups plan ahead and have bottled water for their students, ideally one for the walk and one to replenish afterwards.

I don't mean to just pick on Arlington, which clearly has bigger management problems right now than fixing their water fountains. Visiting the Memorials, the Capitol, even the Smithsonians, require a lot of walking with limited bathroom and water facilities. The National Mall is a virtual desert. Having a place to regroup, get hydrated, pick up or drop off a rain jacket, and so on isn't really a luxury when you are responsible for forty to fifty children.

Nor can we expect them to carry it themselves. Sadly, student visitors will have more first hand experience with police and security officers than any other occupation in their time in Washington, DC. These guys have a demanding job to do, screening thousands of people a day, with the very real threat of personal violence to themselves. Patience is at a minimum, and being in the customer service business, it's my job to make sure my clients get through without incurring the ire of a stressed security guard.

I do this by emphasizing "leave on the bus" as often as possible. Visits to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Capitol, the Archives and even lunch stops such as Ronald Reagan Building and Old Post Office are planned so that I drop off and pick up as close as possible.

I can get a prepped and ready busload of students through security in under five minutes by leaving bags on the bus. Search every bag, and it can take up to fifteen minutes. Multiply that by 5-7 checkpoints I have to get through on a tour, and this starts to add up to real time lost.

Not to mention the items you can't bring in with you grows every year. The White House does not let groups bring cameras in. The Holocaust Memorial Museum makes my kids throw away gum and candy bars. Most ridiculously, the Capitol Visitor's Center will not allow empty water bottles in. Cases can be made for each of these, but taken in aggregate it means I need a place for my students to leave stuff and pick it up. The hotel is out, it's got to be the bus.

But all of this is my problem. It's not why you should care. Go down to Garfield Circle, at the southwest base of Capitol Hill one morning in the spring, and watch buses disgorge students in waves reminiscent of Russian soldiers on the Eastern Front. Now picture these same hundreds of kids getting on at Capitol South, trying to figure out fare gates, purchasing metro cards, standing on the left right, and generally getting in your way.

I do take a group on the Metro, every so often. I encourage this. Once per trip. Most of these kids have never taken mass transit, and things my six year old is an experienced pro at befuddle them. When I have this opportunity to show the Metro off, I purchase tickets ahead of time, I hold a "class" on using it before we step foot underground, and we even do a dry run. I have the kids repeat after me "stand on the left right, walk on the right left" in unison before we get on. I make sure to do it on off peak times and use less crowded entrances and platforms where possible.

Even still, it takes forever. Sure, it's a great experience for the kids and I'm glad to show them part of the "real" Washington, but it takes way too long to get fifty inexperienced metro users around town for it to be an acceptable substitute for bus transportation.

Try this on for size. There are, give or take, 45 coach parking spots at Arlington National Cemetery. Quite often in the spring, they're all full by 9:00 in the morning. Do you really want to share the Blue Line with the over 2,000 students that will spilling out of there mid-morning and heading over to the Mall? Sure, it's a drop in the bucket compared to Metro's daily ridership numbers, but you guys really don't seem to enjoy the 45 or so I bring on by themselves.

No, there's got to be better ways we can handle the bus problem, but just sending them all on the Metro won't work for me or you.

Cross-posted at DC Like a Local.