VIA Rail Easter Results: Sweet

HIGHLIGHTS
From Thursday, March 28^th to Tuesday, April 2^nd:

ROUTES BETWEEN QUEBEC, MONTRÉAL, OTTAWA AND TORONTO |
Increase in ridership of 10.2% compared to 2012
Increase in revenues of 4.9% compared to 2012

COAST-TO-COAST VIA RAIL NETWORK |
71,000 passengers on-board
Increase in ridership of 2.4% compared to 2012
Train Occupancy up 6.9 percentage points compared to 2012

MONTREAL, April 5, 2013 /CNW Telbec/ - VIA Rail Canada is reporting a busy Easter holiday weekend. Motivated by their desire to travel efficiently and seamlessly, more Canadians chose to travel aboard VIA Rail trains during the Easter weekend, compared to last year. Between this past March 28^th and April 2^nd, 71,000 passengers traveled on some 450 trains throughout the country, an increase of 2.4% compared to 2012.

These results show that, in Canada, train is a mode of transport that is growing in popularity. "VIA Rail is implementing several initiatives to improve passenger comfort and facilitate their intercity mobility", said Marc Laliberté, President and Chief Executive Officer of VIA Rail. "The results of last weekend demonstrate that we are moving in the right direction."

Dynamism | Performance | Popularity

On the coast-to-coast network, the busiest day was Thursday, March 28^th, when 15,000 passengers boarded trains. Several trains showed an occupancy rate of over 95%.

VIA Rail customers made good use of trains in the Quebec City-Montréal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor, which proved the most popular over the long weekend, registering an increase of 10.2% in ridership and 4.9% in revenues compared to the same period in 2012.

On longer-distance services, the most popular segments were Toronto-Vancouver, Edmonton-Vancouver and Jasper-Vancouver (The Canadian), as well as Halifax-Montréal, Moncton-Montréal and Bathurst-Montréal (The Ocean). Performance on these services improved significantly: revenue per passenger increased by 13.2%.

On social media, faithful to their habit, VIA Rail customers sent many comments about the quality of customer service and the future On-Board Entertainment programming. A total of 1,630 messages were posted on VIA Rail's Twitter and Facebook pages during the Easter break. Moreover, a great number of customers on trains comfortably connected to VIA Rail's on-board Wi-Fi, and transferred some 1.53 gbytes of data, the equivalent of some 1.5 million emails.

About VIA Rail Canada
As Canada's national rail passenger service, VIA Rail Canada's mandate is to provide safe, efficient and economical passenger transportation service, in both official languages of our country. VIA operates intercity, regional and transcontinental trains linking 450 communities across its 12,500-kilometre route network. Recipient of the Railway Association of Canada's Safety Award in 2011 for the 11^th time in 12 years, and of the 2012 Agent's Choice Award voted by Canadian travel agents and presented by Baxter Travel Media, VIA safely transports nearly four million passengers annually. Since 2007, the Government of Canada has invested almost a billion dollars in VIA Rail. Follow the progress of our transformation at http://www.viarail.ca/en/about-via-rail/capital-investment.

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SOURCE: VIA Rail Canada Inc.