The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak)

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The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) provides intercity and commuter railway passenger transportation services and operates high-speed railroads on the Northeast Corridor, state-supported routes, and long-distance routes in the United States (49 U.S.C. 24101). Moreover, Amtrak operates commuter railroads, provides the infrastructure,presents rail services to other rail operators, and plus manages its real estate assets. Amtrak operates more than 21,300 miles of the national railway network and serves more than 500 destinations in 46 States, plus the District of Columbia and three provinces in Canada. The Northeast Corridor is the most crowded railroads of Amtrak and also in the North America. For instance, the Boston-New York-Washington …show more content…

With this takeover, Amtrak accessed these companies’ tracks and operate its national intercity passenger rail network independently. Amtrak was established as a federally-chartered for-profit corporation and considered an independent, permanent, and mixed-ownership government corporation. The Federal government is the majority stockholder in the Amtrak. Moreover, Congressional Research Service treats Amtrak as a quasi-governmental entity, which is a corporation whose stock is nearly completely owned by the Federal Government. Amtrak was assigned a new mission by the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008; “to provide efficient and effective intercity passenger rail mobility consisting of high quality service that is trip-time competitive with other intercity travel options”. After this Act, Amtrak reorganized into three operating lines to make its management and finances more accountable and also more transparent. Furthermore, in 2015, the Congress passed the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, in which Amtrak is provided up to $8.05 billion between the fiscal year 2016 through …show more content…

Therefore, government departments or agencies that exercise ownership rights over SOEs should act as trustees of the public. The duties of managing the ownership rights to the public are different from the duties of a board towards the shareholders. Since governments should exercise its powers on SOEs in accordance with the public’s best interest, high standards of transparency and accountability are required in SOE governance to inform the public. Furthermore, good governance in the SOE management is essential for the economic efficiency and competitiveness of the SOEs. In this chapter, better practices and lessons will be discussed to improve both the SOE management in Turkey and management of the government corporations in the

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