Voices of the Industry presented by Steer - #2 On track to Net Zero: The Amtrak journey with Dennis Newman

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[Music] hello and welcome to voices of the
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industry a podcast series bringing you leading industry voices who challenge thinking across Transportation
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infrastructure and [Music]
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cities well welcome to listeners to another voices of Industry steer post
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very grateful for you joining in today I'm Mike goggi and I'm a managing director with steer here in London our voices of Industry conversations take
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Insight from leaders from across the globe alongside the steer footprint and give views on infrastructure City's
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transport and financing and on our website you'll see over 30 plus speakers who have been able to talk to us over
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the years give us their views today is a very exciting conversation a unique
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conversation I think if you think about Inter City passenger travel in the United States there's one name that
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comes to mind and that's Amtrak it is the heart of American Mobility system it's also got a very exciting future
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President Biden has passed the bipartisan infrastructure Bill providing an additional funding for expansion of
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the network the largest investment in passenger rails since Amtrak's Creation in 1970 so it's definitely an exciting
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time with this positive context the corporation has set out some bold Ambitions for its sustainability
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credentials and what it achieves to do with Net Zero and there is still more to come a plan to double its ridership by
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2040 through further FR rout expansion so without further Ado let me introduce
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my companions on the conversation today Dennis Newman Executive Vice President for strategy and planning Dennis has
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been in Amtrak since 2017 and prior to that had a good successful career in
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aviation working at senior levels so it'll be interesting to hear the contrast between those two sectors he
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good morning Dennis how are you today good morning Mike I'm very well today how about you I'm very good thank you
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thanks for joining us I'm going to just bring in Ser Coy Ser G welcome steers head of sustainability Ser I hope you
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don't mind if I refer to you as a seasoned consultant having worked with
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steer on four continents and across multiple modes thank you Mike thank you great a pleasure to be here pleasure to
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have Dennis with us to talk about something so interesting that goes really close to what we as a business
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and we as as individuals want to achieve out of the future that lies ahead of us I I think I think my very recent Fourth
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of July experience was to travel on the amra capital Corridor between San Jose and Sacramento and and I was fascinated
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by how comfortable that Journey was how beautiful the landscape was California has had a gorgeous amount of rainfall
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after about 10 years and I was shocked how few people were on it so that's something else which I think you know
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the mode train by itself is a sustainable mode of travel and now taking that further which is what I
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understand Dennis and his team are trying to achieve should be a fascinating journey to go and walk through and understand what's happening
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in that Journey thank you for having me thanks sir Dennis you heard my pen portrait of Amtrak it's very hard to sum
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up 50 year old organization and the the scale and the span what have I missed what would you like to say how would you
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describe Amtrak and what your mission is at the moment well mikee you did actually a pretty pretty good job of of
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summarizing am and what we do we are definitely unique right we are uh we're actually a private company we just
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happen to be owned by the United States government that's one of the unique things you talked about our uh where we
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are in terms of our future and this really is an exciting and critical time
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for us that's you mentioned have us having 19,000 employees in fact we have
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21,000 employees now um we have then you know as a result of the position we're
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in with the the bipartisan infrastructure law having passed we are now building up both our Capital
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delivery part of our organization so that we at last can actually be making
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some of the improvements to some of our aging infrastructure that that really does need to be brought into the the
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21st century some some elements that just need to be replaced and so we've been building up in able to do that but
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also as coming out of the pandemic bringing back our service and as you mentioned we've got Ambitions to to grow
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the network quite a bit and be able to deliver more Mobility benefits to more
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of America so it's really an exciting time for us at Amtrak it sounds it it sounds it and before we talk forward can
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I just ask I was really intrigued I mean you've been with Amtrak what six seven years now uh and coming as I say your 17
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plus years with with Aviation before that and and another career before that is there any big reflection that you
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take from moving from Aviation to the railroad Corporation did you see a big contrast in the way they they think
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about things you know I think there's a lot that's that's really similar right we're um in in both cases we're about
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moving people at base it's it's giving people the opportunity to be mobile and
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get from one location to another a lot of the considerations you know I spent a lot of my my Airline career in network
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planning a lot of the considerations of trying to figure out okay where can you be uh successful really where can you
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deliver a a relevant product similar kinds of analytical techniques to try to
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figure that out but I will say that while there are some and we'll we'll
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talk about these you know sustainability is is one of the benefits uh key
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benefits of of rail um relative to air travel um but also there are some more
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constraints and challenges um as I always say to folks you you don't have to build air but you do have to build
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rail in order to get where you want to go and so that can be that adds a few more challenges but you know in big
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picture A lot of similarities you know and both obviously customer service issues that are that are key High fixed
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asset component to the business so there's a lot that's transferable well lot that's lot that's different yeah and
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you're still enjoying it after seven years still much to do as you say absolutely and as I said it's such an exciting time to here that what's not to
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enjoy absolutely absolutely so look we T this up as a conversation about sustainability so let let's get into
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that and I wanted to start with where the imperative for amtr has come from because when I read around a bit around
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the topic it's very clear the organization has ambition to really drive forward its sustainability
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contributions and minimize its environmental impact so I'm wondering where where did that Providence come
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from what's what's driving the organization well I think there's a few things that I would say to that question
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one is you know we start from being a mode that that is more sustainable so
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part of our competitive Advantage is that we are a more sustainable mode of travel and so trying to leverage that
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Advantage is is a key to us because it's it is attractive particularly to a
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growing segment of the uh of the population so so that's one and then you
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know second is and we'll maybe talk a little bit more about this is just the impacts that we see of climate change on
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our operations on our customers and our employees and so the need to address
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those events is is driving us as well and then we you I may touch on this
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again later but we have a very simple set of values at Amtrak and it's do the
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right thing put customers first and Excel together and and those things
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together kind of a impel us to want to address the issues of climate change and
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sustainability and so so that drives us forward so and just taking our mission as being able to deliver more Mobility
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Inter City passenger rail transportation to the to the country we need to do that in a sustainable way if we're going to
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be successful gotcha thank thank you so can I just bring you in here because I know you were recently uh doing some
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work for an investor in roads who was very much interested in how their asset
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performance was impacting across sustainability absolutely and I think what was quite intriguing in some of the
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things you said just there Dennis and and and linking it back to the to the sustainability work we were looking at
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for Road asset was how naturally what you rightly said rail is a sustainable
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mode and then therefore what you're trying to achieve is is to then take that agenda further so I I actually
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wanted to get kind of you know your perspective on what does sustainability mean at amtr what's your key objectives
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well our key objectives relate to reducing our our emissions right and I
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think we'll talk about our our climate commitment but it's got a it's it's a
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rather ambitious agenda that we've got right we've uh and we can talk maybe
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about about more specifics but um we've got a pledge to achieve Net Zero by
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2045 um and there are a lot of elements that go into reaching that achievement
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big picture reducing our impact on the environment the um and particularly
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contributions to warming and climate change making our railroad more resilient and being able to withstand
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that some of the impacts that we experience because of climate change and
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and really having our whole organization be attuned to those issues and working
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to make us better and and find Solutions understood and then when you are looking
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at achieving those objectives I noted that you talk about a datadriven approach in assessing all these
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objectives could you talk a little bit more about what does this datadriven approach involve well it
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involves in a few different ways one you know in looking at you know where are
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really the topics that we should be addressing we you know we did take an
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approach and kind of an AI driven approach to see what are really the the relevant topics that across our industry
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and and public kind of at large what are the topics related to sustainability
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that are that are really important and so we were glad to see that the key
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topics that we are already addressing are the ones that that really resonate
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so that's one place where where data comes in the other one is just in really the nuts and bolts is our you know
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looking at our where are the key sources of emissions our fuel is fuel use is of
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course the the biggest one desel fuel that operates most of our trains is our
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biggest source and so the the data about our fuel use the data about our
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electricity use and how that electricity is generated and then looking at things
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that we can do to improve like how often our locomotives are sitting idling and
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uh creating emissions that they really don't need to so that we could that that's something that we can address to
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try to reduce emissions and also as we have looked at assessing where our our
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biggest risks are you know particularly when it gets to resiliency um using
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climate models to predict where changes in you and sea level or temperature or
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or other climate events are going to occur so that we can assess risk identify where we really have to to take
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action to improve our resiliency interesting and then picking up one of the points you made earlier about using
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AI in actually understanding the real risk that sits on on across the network
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across the assets that you own and operate one of the quite peculiar push
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back against AI that we are starting to hear is about how some of these technological changes shifts towards net
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zero pushes towards sustainability is leaving people behind people who don't
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have those skills and don't have those capabilities is that something that comes in your consideration when you are
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making those choices of how does amra become more sustainable you know I'm not
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sure that that I necessarily see that as a um from my standpoint as a threat of
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our sustainability efforts I mean in fact we find that as we're trying to
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engage our Workforce uh on on solutions that you know I was we're not NE don't
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need I I don't think to employ AI in that regard it's really the you know
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that practical knowledge of people who are running the railroad who help us uh identify potential Solutions or you know
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changes to our process that that can make us can make us better so you know while in general there are areas where
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you know where AI may have impacts on uh could have some negative impacts uh I
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don't think that this is one of them for for us understood no that's that's helpful I'll I'll I'll bring Mike in at
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this point because I know Mike and me have been discussing on some of these points quite extensively because it's so
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asset and context specific but I I'm I want to go back to the people bit Dennis you know 22,000 people as you said now
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so still still growing and as you say and I was taking when I was reading some
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some of your your plans and initiatives just how much you're seeking to drive change through through your employees
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and but also by influencing customer Behavior as well and I wondered how are you finding that journey is everybody on
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that Journey with you because that's that's a big task but it is the way that success is going to come about in terms
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of both Net Zero but just generally the volunteering in community groups and uh and participating in communities yeah I
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think I would say that short answer yes but nevertheless we you know we're we are embarking on an increase in our
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focus on sustainability um it's it's new to a lot of people right so we we need
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to be bringing people along so some of the things that we've been doing are I
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mean first of all integrating sustainability goals into our overall strategic planning uh and so in our
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annual plans we have got specific goals for improving sustainability we've got a
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group of folks who who are you know form a committee that's that's focused on sustain ability but then we're also one
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thing we actually just did this year is we instituted sustainability training it
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just kind of awareness and and what sustainability means for us for all of our management employees to make sure
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that folks understand what we're about when we did have our our board approve a
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climate commitment including our NetZero pledge communicating that out across the company to get people involved and and
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we're very fortunate in having a Workforce you many people come to Amtrak
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because it is kind of Missi driven they're Mission driven folks who who come here and so they want to do the
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right thing and uh and help put customers first so uh you know so I
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think it's it's not a big lift to get people to be interested in in helping us
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try to find solutions that that integration into management thinking into strategic planning does that relate
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to your uh double materiality framework that I was reading in in your sustainability report the the idea that
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you were going to think about those criteria as you operate and as you plan for the future well I think it does um
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in some sense relate we did as we were doing that assessment and materiality
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assessment it was it was double so we looked at both the impacts financially strategically for uh the organization
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but also the the social and and external impacts as well and since we are very
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much a mission driven organization that does lead us to want to integrate sustainability more into what we're
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doing and then just following up on that Dennis are you starting to see this as
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not so much of a top down board and management driven thinking or given the
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breadth of employees you've got are you starting to see that shift from a bottom up driven thinking I think we're
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probably still seeing both candidly right we're we're definitely there's a lot of the top down because our our
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management is very cognizant of of what we need to accomplish but as I said we
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have a lot of our Workforce is very interested in helping us find these
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Solutions so we in particular you know we just recently in the last couple years had set up an an innovation group
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specifically as it's now our what we used to call it is now digital Tech
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technology and Innovation um and it's it's not just computer related things
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it's focused on Innovation that can help us get better not just in sustainability
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but also in customer service and in efficiency so that we can have more
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efficient operations but sustainability is a key part of it and one of the things that the Innovation group is
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helping us do is reach across the company to get ideas you know really
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kind of have a portal for employ employees to give us their ideas about things we can do and sustainability is
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one of the one of the areas where we use that platform to try to get
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ideas crowd sourcing very interesting now just kind of you know looking over
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to your customers the 65 100,000 customers that that you're aiming to serve or are serving and and and almost
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looking outwards have you have you have you started considering how some of the
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behavior change that is starting to awareness about climate change awareness about sustainability growing that
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starting to impact your customers behavior is that starting to are you starting to see any of that change in
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your business uh well absolutely I mean there you know as there's as there's
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more awareness just in the general public about sustainability that makes people more
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open and interested in in our mode uh so you know a lot of as we look at uh
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looking at tracking Trends in the in the transportation business you know we do
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see that the data says that more Travelers are more interested in
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sustainable modes of travel that's great for us because that's that is us um and
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particularly as um you know younger adults are even more attuned and
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interested so as we grow and as we go forward we expect that the the consumers
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of Tomorrow are going to be even more interested in our sustainable mode of
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transportation and again I can only speak from my own personal experience of having to choose between renting a car
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or borrowing a car from one of my relatives in San Jose to go up to Sacramento how convenient and how
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comfortable it was including a you know absolutely perfectly working Wi-Fi where I could get on calls and have
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conversation with my colleagues and take pictures of the beautiful mountain with the river beds around it was fantastic
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and I couldn't believe that none of the relatives who I have who've been living in San Jose for about 30 years had
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considered that choice so I I can see that in action on my own because on this side of the pond in Europe it's natural
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for us to jump on a train to travel between cities whereas it's not the case in that part of the world which which
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you are serving so that that shift must be really encouraging for you as a business you as as as as a aable
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employer it is and and yeah after after what you just said we need to enlist you
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for marketing um so but you know and and speaking of our marketing when we you
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know we put a lot of um sustainability themed posts uh up on our on social
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media and they tend to be our most viewed posts among our most viewed posts
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so you know we do see that the the people who are engaging with us on
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Modern platforms are very much interested in sustainability fantastic fantastic I'll
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I'll Loop in Mike again because I know M Mike wants to cover more topics we've listened to your vacation stories which
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is great but one of the other stories that we you know we we we've all been seeing I think both both sides of the
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Atlantic is the extreme weather that we've we've seen so on the continent here in Europe we've seen excessive heat
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but clearly in the United States we've seen exceptional rainfall wind and and I was just Dennis I don't know you want to
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amplify some of the operational consequences that you've had to face in recent years that because I read read
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quite a bit in your in your sustainability report about just the the the Practical costs and the damage to
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Future Revenue that you've suffered as as a result of climate change yeah Mike um I I would be happy to expand on that
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so um you're right there are some significant impacts and you know I would probably make a distinction between the
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severe weather that impacts our business on a regular basis um out there's there's always been some of that but the
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trend of more intense more frequent events like the big heavy precipitation
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events and the longer lasting heat waves that's a newer and increasing phenomenon
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so you know if we looked back just to to put a few numbers on it over the the
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stretch from 2006 to 2019 we lost $127
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million in uh in ridership Revenue from over 450 different climate disruption
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events that had the greatest service impacts so it's pretty big um this year
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we've had we had to truncate service um in Southern California um one of those
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beautiful routes that one could could travel but um along the corridor near
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the delmare Bluffs and San Clemente because of coastal erosion and then landslides that have been caused by
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really historic rainfall so that a severe impact we had you know many riders who we could not transport we've
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got again in California in in Palm Springs because of wind blown sand we've
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had to cancel service um since June of this year uh because we we're not able to keep the sand off the tracks there
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now hurricanes something we you know we prepare for every year so you know our
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emergency preparedness team looks at the the Noah National Atmospheric
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Administration um forecast for the hurricane season and then that way we
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can we can plan with our staff in places like New Orleans or Miami or Orlando
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that are likely to be most impacted and will change how we operate you we will
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uh we'll look at kind of a radius around the where the storm track's going to be and and we'll you know cancel service
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preemptively or proactively so that we can prior ize employee and customer
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safety um but then limit the disruptions that might happen in transit and
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mitigate any damage to our equipment so that also of course then is is causing
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revenue and ridership loss so and then sometimes those storms when they do come
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even when we prepare for them they could be much more much more than we expect so
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hurricane Ida um in September of 2021 for instance we ended up having to
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25,000 tickets we ended up at uh our our 30th Street William H gray the thir
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station in Philadelphia was flooded we had $4 million worth of damage um at the
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station there and it we lost about 1.6 million dollars in revenue from that event so so that's a big one and then
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the other one that we're encountering more and more is the days of really high
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heat and when we've got really high heat of course that causes expansion of the
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rail High ambient temperatures will cause either us on our own railroad or
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our host railroads who we travel most of our train miles over to Institute speed
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restrictions or slow orders and and when that happens you know of course we're
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slowing down the trains they're going to take longer to get where they're going to get that can lead to unhappy
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customers because we're we're late but also just drives more cost ends up we burn more fuel because we're out on the
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railroad longer um could happen to where our our crews reach the end of their you
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know their regulation time and uh time out and so we've got to have a relief crew come and so that drives additional
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cost so lots of uh lots of impacts there and you know we're seeing more of those
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high heat days as we go along I get you and so tackling it you you've got the
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Bold ambition 2045 Net Zero uh and there's the three prongs that you're
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you're relating to I believe on vehicles infrastructure and supply chain I just wondered do do you want to sort of say
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what the key missions or initiatives are are th under those three uh sure we actually we kind of
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group them into four we include we include one that's strategy so really that's kind of setting our or
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overarching the kind of the backplate right of what we need to achieve we've got to identify you know what are what
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are the metrics and reporting that we're uh going to be doing and um what are the
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Partnerships that we have to develop uh what are the overall goals so that's the that's the strategy piece but then um
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the other pieces as you mentioned are Vehicles infrastructure and then our
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supply chain and um and business operations so you know really that helps
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us get things organized get the right you know Champions and leaders in those
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different Cate categories to help Propel us forward so as I said strategies that
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gives us the policies the governance the communication so that we can organize the overall program the vehicles is you
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know both our equipment that we carry our customers on and the equipment that
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we use to maintain operations and as I mentioned before diesel fuel use is by
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far our biggest source of emissions I mean it's it's about 60 % of our um of
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our ghg emissions so so vehicles are key infrastructure again we can we focus on
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the electricity that we're buying and how that's generated looking at onsite
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generation renewable energy Generation Um transitioning our mechanical systems
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in our stations and our buildings to to zero emissions so between the the vehicles and the
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infrastructure that addresses the majority of of Scopes one and two
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and then our value chain is you know is actually you know complex and it's
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carbon intensive um and so we are you know we're really starting to tackle
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that a bit more now not that well we're we're starting to tackle the other pieces too because they're they're going
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to take some doing to address particularly the uh the diesel fuel use but um but supply chain we're we're
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really you know building up our capabilities to understand the Upstream
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parts of the the value chain and and how we can influence the reductions in
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emissions there as well I I'm intrigued by the the supply chain and I don't know if you would call the host railroads
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part of your supply chain or or their Partners as such but are they on the journey with you are they ahead behind I
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mean how what's the cooperation and the is there a shared goal that you're all driving
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to yeah the um I don't know that we have a we don't have a formal shared goal I wouldn't say
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but you know but they are on the journey and as well and uh and in fact we think
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that we have a lot in common in in what we're trying to pursue with the freight
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railroads the host railroads I mean I guess all railroads in general right so and many of them may the the freight
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railroads frankly are ahead of us in trying to uh some pilot some new technology some of them so um so it it
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is actually an area where uh where we can have some some good cooperation and
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I think be able to to learn from each other and and you know really find kind
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of the the win-win situations which is great to find with our uh with our host railroads Dennis I would quite like to
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go back to that mindboggling numbers that you were just telling us about how much these climate events are impacting
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and how acutely you are starting to see their monetary impact that's that's fascinating I think that's really
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important to actually value these impacts but then in terms of what typically has been the approach to
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respond to such events has been either adaptation or mitigation is what we have
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seen elsewhere how are you going about in your assessment on what what is your
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strategy and how is the cost benefit assessment of these measures being taken to to assess what is most impactful
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in specifically these climate event scenario yeah well I guess a few things I one as as I said for some of the
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events that we can anticipate trying to you know make adjustments to our
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operations so we can avoid some of the impacts now you know if we're canceling service because of a major storm that's
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obviously not helping us with the with the revenue um impact and ridership
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impact but it nevertheless it's it's having the advantage of of keeping you know people and Equipment safe so that's
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that's that's key but otherwise it is a lot of uh mitigation and it's looking at
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with our risk assessments and vulnerability assessments identifying where the biggest risk areas are try to
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identify what sort of you know reinforcement of of the railroad uh the
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infrastructure we can we can undertake to to try to improve our ability to
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withstand these um these impacts um and obviously you know as we in our view as
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we get more people to to ride rail we're going to help with reducing emissions so uh so that's going to help too but
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really trying to identify what where are the the most impactful mitigations that
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we can Undertake and and trying to adjust our operations to avoid the
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biggest impacts understood and then picking up one other statistic you can tell I love numbers that 68% of your
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emissions are through your diesel emissions what's your strategy to
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mitigate that aspect yeah well the it starts from the small to the big right
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so we um you know I talked about idling um so just being mindful prudent about
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times when we don't need to be running the the locomotive and uh and therefore
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not uh creating those emissions so that can have an impact we have already this
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year converted to renewable Diesel and a number of locations in California so
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started on on that Journey that that gives a 63% reduction in emissions
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versus regular diesel so so that's part of the journey and then the you know we
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we do have uh also in some of the fleet decisions we've made recently where
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we've you know brought on yeah are bringing in replacing our older locomotives our old p42 locomotives are
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are being replaced with more efficient and lower emission U more modern
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technology so already on that part of the journey this isn't so much replacing
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but more of our growth being on the Northeast Corridor where we're electrified moves a little bit more
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traffic onto U non- diesel Alternatives but then as we go forward we are
33:28
figuring out what it's going to take to to change the propulsion and so looking
33:35
at battery or hydrogen or whatever other technology may come along that's going
33:41
to be able to help us but you know trying to we are actively working on plotting the path for okay if we're
33:47
going to get to Net Zero by 2045 what's it going to take to change the propulsion and uh and how are we going
33:53
to get there have we covered the topics that you would like to get across there anything You' like to go back to or
33:59
anything that we have not addressed but you think you haven't given me an opportunity to talk about it yet the thing that maybe I'd add is that while
34:07
we've taken the The Net Zero pledge by 2045 our climate commitment also
34:15
included the some of things we've already talked about but kind of the the guide posts or mile posts along the way
34:23
so trying to get to carbon free electric it and in a in a shorter time frame
34:31
making reductions in diesel fuel use in the you know in the near term while we
34:37
are still working on the the big you know step change impacts that we'll have later really trying to incorporate
34:45
sustainability resiliency into all our business operations that's part of our
34:50
our overall climate commitment as well we see this ambitious goal of doubling
34:57
Riders as one of her impressions we also see your ambitious goal to go Net Zero by 2045 and the way I translate that is
35:04
effectively disconnecting what I would call your your business's growth from your
35:10
emissions growth so so so these that's how I see these two goals to be achieved
35:15
together um you talk about your your expansion plans in the connect US Vision
35:22
how Central is sustainability to that Vision uh it's well it's it's very
35:28
Central because as we have as we've talked about our mode is by its nature
35:36
more sustainable so the more we get people out of their cars and onto the
35:41
trains that's going to help us in driving sustainability so so it is a
35:46
little bit uh Ser kind of two-pronged it's one um make our operations more
35:53
sustainable reduce emissions in the operations that we already have and the
35:58
future operations as well as get more people to be traveling by train so that
36:04
we're um having kind of that double impact of not only making the travel by
36:10
train more sustainable but having more people travel by train and and we really
36:16
are in that growth Vision yeah we're focused on the places where and the and
36:22
the corridors where we think that Inter City passenger rail really can be
36:28
competitive with with other modes of travel you know so largely you know more
36:33
of those shorter you know shorter Halls 300 miles or less and there the the
36:39
benefits of rail travel versus Air are are even higher because the a short Hall
36:45
flight is is really even more carbon intensive than than a longer Hall in
36:50
some ways um on a kind of per mile basis so there's more value there we're able
36:56
to be more trip time competitive in in those kinds of routes and those are the
37:02
places where particularly in the US where we've seen some significant population growth in major metropolitan
37:10
areas and particularly in some places that don't have a lot of inner city passenger rail um today they are they're
37:18
bigger Metro areas there are more people who could and would benefit from having
37:24
a rail option that's going to give people an opportunity to to take this more sustainable form of
37:31
transportation thank you now and from my own personal experience I can completely concur you know the time I spent between
37:37
San J and Sacramento I was able to make so much value out of that so even actually having a slower ride time was a
37:45
benefit for me because I could finish my meetings and finish my conversations and not have the tense of driving and
37:50
finding a parking and worrying about people hitting me on the road or whatever so I completely concur with you
37:55
but thank you Dennis let me ask you might they're meant to be easy questions but you might find them challenging I
38:00
say one thing is if there was one thing that you could ask for that would help
38:06
the Journey of Amtrak achieve its nit zero goal what would that be and if there's one thing you'd like to share
38:11
with our our listeners what would that be let's see one thing we could ask for
38:17
well one thing maybe I'll say two things one is the you know we really do need
38:24
the advancement of the the technological in so I don't know who yeah I'm kind of
38:30
asking the world for this one I guess but um but really we you know as we talked about the diesel diesel fuel use
38:37
is the biggest portion of our emissions and um and so being able to to find the
38:44
Practical efficient solutions that are going to going to let us change that propulsion is key and I guess that's
38:50
where it gets to the second one is you know that that doesn't come for free and so we you know we need continued
38:57
investment in um in our mode of transportation to be able to uh to get there so that's maybe the you know
39:04
combined one thing you know sort of two things for one that I'd ask and then you know in terms of a message the what I
39:12
would want to convey is that we are interested and and we are committed to being responsible stewards and part of
39:20
what we do in in our role as as America's railroad is is responsible
39:25
stewards of the taxpayer money so we look to be efficient and and
39:31
effective and responsible stewards of the the resources that we use and so you
39:37
know we we want to make our more sustainable mode of transportation
39:42
available to more people be able to give those options and we're we're looking
39:47
forward to welcoming more people aboard that sounds great I mean it I'm well
39:53
thank look we're out of time thank you so much for participating I have say one of my Reflections going away I don't
39:59
serve but you're going to have a reflection or two but first of all it it's an exciting time I just I love the
40:04
ambition you've put out there I love that you've got at the moment that the additional funding that's coming towards
40:10
America's railroad as you said to to expand and and meet your ridership goals you're making good progress it just
40:16
seems like a really exciting time and I particularly like the tactics of that idea of integrating the thinking into
40:24
the ways of being the the strategic planning put the objectives in there to think more holistically around
40:29
sustainability as you operate and plan for the future Ser any last Reflections I think my made takeaway from this
40:36
conversation is that you know from almost thinking about double materiality this is about double impact the point
40:41
that you made then is about first getting people out of their their cars into a sustainable mode and then when
40:47
they are on that mode there is all the best that is possible to make that mode itself sustainable so that's the Double
40:54
Impact messaging that I'm taking away from this so but no that that that's that's that's the real reflection for me
41:00
from this conversation so thank you Dennis yeah well thank you I appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to you
41:05
about an exciting topic and and to talk about the exciting times we're having here at Amtrak it's a vitally important
41:11
thing so thank you very much for sparing the time with us Dennis thank you Ser for contributing as well and thank you
41:17
for listening in folks I hope you enjoyed it go to steer group.com if you want to see some more of these or listen
41:24
to more of these and read some of our other conversations we've had with the leaders until next time thank you very
41:29
much
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