Railway Industry in France

TGV 1

1. Industry Overview:

In France, one of the most popular transport modes is train.  SNCF is France’s national railway, providing high speed, overnight and local services in France and beyond into Spain, Switzerland and Italy.

>> http://www.tgv-europe.com/en

Types of Train in France:

01-TGV

02-Lunea

03-Teoz

04-TER

06-Intercites

Railway industry is quite similar to airline industry, as it sells seats for a transport from an origin to a destination. The price depends on journey, class, and date of booking. Thus, railway industry can be placed in Quadrant 2, where its service has variable prices for a predictable duration. This industry also has the appropriate characteristics to apply revenue management strategies. Those characteristics are:

– Inflexible capacity: the number of seats on a train is fixed

– Variable and uncertain demand: the demand is different depending on the time of day, day of week, origin-destination pairs, and purpose of travel

– Perishable inventory: the unoccupied seat cannot be inventoried, and the revenue of that seat is missed

– Low marginal cost and high production cost

– Product can be sold in advance

– Heterogeneous customers with different segments, varying by age, purpose of travel, independent or group, etc.

However, there are some differences that make the revenue management of railway industry is little bit different than that of airline industry.

More difficult to forecast demand and to have the accurate number of travelers on a service: no check-in procedure, open tickets (rail pass) generally allow passengers to travel on any rail service, walk up tickets are very common (a large number of passengers purchase their tickets on the day from the station)

Less difficult to deal with overbooking: passengers are often allowed to stand during train journeys hence increasing capacity beyond the number of seats

———

 2. Space

Railway industry defines space implicitly.

Normally, a train has two classes: Economy (2nd Class) and Comfort (1st Class). The seating options and services are different for each class. The price is same for different seating options in a class.

 Economy Class:
01-Class2
 Comfort Class:

01-Class 1

Trains, especially TGV has “TGV bar”, which provides a wide selection of meals and sweet snacks available for purchase. Additionally, the TGV bar offers films on DVD, magazines, games for children, Paris Metro tickets, even USB sticks for purchase. There is also a rolling snack cart that comes to the customers’ seats.

01-TGV Bar

For additional revenue, TGV offers Premium service includes 1st Class seat, meal service, and access to the TGV lounge at the train stations.

Personally, I would charge difference fares for different seating options in each class. A group will want to pay more to have a Club 4 seat. A couple will want the Duo seat or Club 2 seat. And an individual traveler will want a solo seat. As the number of seat are fixed, we can charge for each option, rather than a “first comes first served” policy.

I’m also thinking about a mini-cinema on train, especially overnight train. Normally, the overnight train have load factor less than 80%, so the train can use one car to transform into a mini-cinema with a projector and a screen. When the train is busy, the car will be transformed in normal guest car again.

——

3. Time

Railway industry defines time implicitly.

Although the duration of a journey is determined, the railway industry sells a journey rather than specifically selling time. In addition, there may be issues that cause the increase/decrease in duration of the journey.

However, the railway industry also tries to sell time explicitly with the Rail pass. With Rail pass, customers can have unlimited travel on the national rail network of France for a fixed number of days. The choices are 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9-day pass within a one-month period. Travel days may be used consecutively or non-consecutively.  Thus, the fare becomes rate-per-day, not anymore rate-per-trip.

>> http://www.raileurope.com/rail-tickets-passes/france-pass/index.html

The industry can sell time explicitly by providing Rail pass with weekly or monthly unit. However, I think it will not be effective as it makes the demand forecasting much more complicated.  Half-day unit won’t make sense as a trip is normally more than 3 hours.

——–

4. Price

Tickets can be purchased 60 to 120 days in advance depending on the route.

Ticket discounts are based on advance purchase, availability, and certain restrictions. Everyone is eligible to receive discounted fares by purchasing an Economy or Comfort class ticket in advance. Youth and seniors can enjoy specific discounts as well. Discounted tickets are available for youth (under 26 of age), seniors (age 60 and over) and children (generally ages 4-11) but should be verified with each product.

Price at 1 week before departure
01-Price-1st class-10AM-1wk

Price at 2 weeks before departure

01-Price-1st class-10AM-2wk

Price at 3 weeks before departure

01-Price-1st class-10AM-3wk

Price at 4 weeks before departure

01-Price-1st class-10AM-4wk

Normally, prices are reduced for 1or 2 week-advanced purchase, slightly reduced for 3-week-advanced purchased, and stay same for more-than-4-week-advanced purchase.

The physical rate fences are the classes:
01-Booking-Class

 

The non-physical rate fences are age, season ticket, and loyalty

01-Booking-Rate Fences-1

01-Booking-Rate Fences-2

01-Booking-Rate Fences-3

01-Booking-Rate Fences-4

As the rate fences are now already too sophisticated, I would rather consolidate these fences than create new fences to confuse customers.

 

(-Thao Ly)

——–

References:

http://www.raileurope.com

http://www.tgv-europe.com

http://www.sncf.co.uk/

Amstrong and Messneir, 2010. Railway revenue management: Overview and Methods

Schroeder, Braun, and Schnieder. Revenue management in the railway industry

 

164,948 thoughts on “Railway Industry in France

  1. Excellent .. Amazing .. I’ll bookmark your blog and take the feeds also…I’m happy to find so many useful info here in the post, we need work out more techniques in this regard, thanks for sharing. cabinet hardware

  2. Groupag Trading Group Limited is a passionate company who desires to provide its clients with the best products and services. When it comes to supplying kidney beans, we have the best and professional kidney beans suppliers and manufacturers who know their job well and take every step with precision. They never overlook any detail in any manner.
    https://groupagtradinggroupltd.com/red-kidney-beans/

  3. Following analyze several of the website content on your own internet site now, and I in fact like your way of running a blog. I book marked that to be able to my save web site listing and can be examining back again shortly. Please attempt my own website as effectively as well as let me know what you believe. Jeeters

  4. ไม่จำเป็นต้องไปที่คาสิโนหรือห้องโป๊กเกอร์แบบดั้งเดิมเพื่อเพลิดเพลินกับเกม joker123 เกมเหล่านี้สามารถเล่นได้อย่างสะดวกสบายที่บ้านของคุณเอง ไม่จำเป็นต้องมีอุปกรณ์อิเล็กทรอนิกส์ระดับไฮเอนด์หรือดาวน์โหลดซอฟต์แวร์ที่ซับซ้อนเพื่อเล่นเกมเหล่านี้ สิ่งที่คุณต้องมีคือการเชื่อมต่ออินเทอร์เน็ตเพื่อสนุกกับเกม

  5. Hello Fella, What you ?came up with here absolutely have me wicked up to the last word, and I wanna say to you I rarely read the entire post of blogs as I often got sick and tired of the gibberish that is presented in the junkyard of the world wide web on a daily basis and I simply end up checking out the headlines and maybe the first lines or something like that. But your headline and the first few rows were exceptional and it right on the spot forced me to stay. So, I just wanna say: nice and rare job! Thanks, really. what time does chime direct deposit hit

  6. Personally, I have found that to remain probably the most fascinating topics when it draws a parallel to. You may find two to three new levels inside L . a . Weight loss and any one someone is incredibly important. Initial stage may be real melting away rrn the body. lose weight https://howisland.com/

  7. Animeflv es el gran sitio web para ver el lanzamiento de Pokemon.Estén atentos a Animeflv para ver los últimos episodios Pokemon Sub Español. Pokemon

  8. Impressive web site, Distinguished feedback that I can tackle. I am moving forward and may apply to my current job as a pet sitter, which is very enjoyable, but I need to additional expand. Regards https://howisland.com/

  9. I just got to this amazing site not long ago. I was actually captured with the piece of resources you have got here. Big thumbs up for making such wonderful blog page! PR článek

  10. This is really a nice and informative, containing all information and also has a great impact on the new technology. Thanks for sharing it dp

  11. fingertrick.fr FINGERTRICK : Nous sommes spécialiste des Fingerboards. Si vous recherchez les sensations d’un Rider vous êtes au bon endroit. N’hésitez pas à découvrir toutes nos collections dès à présent.

  12. I feel like I’m often looking for interesting things to read about a variety of niches, but I manage to include your blog among my reads every day because you have compelling entries that I look forward to. Here’s hoping there’s a lot more amazing material coming! pagalworld mp3 songs download

  13. pochonmagique.com Chez Pochon Magique, nous sommes spécialiste des pochons. Si vous recherchez un pochon vous êtes au bon endroit. N’hésitez pas à découvrir toutes nos collections dès à présent.

  14. أكبر متجر لبيع اللوح الجدارية بيع لوح الحائط بجميع المقاسات لوح حائط مودرن ولوحات حائط منزلية لوح جدارية للمنزل لوحات جدارية تجريدية وطبيعة ولوح حائط خيول ومودرن لوح جدارية مقاسات كبيرة لوح جدارية

  15. dewabet adalah situs judi online yang bisa membuat anda menhilangkan stress dengan memainkanya dengan cukup baik
    situs dibawah ini adalah situs pokronline masa kini dan yang pastinya terpercaya
    dewabet

  16. domino88 adalah situs judi dengan erbagaimacam permainan yang sangatenarik untukdi mainka dikala anda memiliki waktu senggang yang enuh melakukan aktifitas sehari hari
    domino88 slot

  17. Emotional attention, self-control, approval, adhere to, patience but also security. These are typically among the issues that Tang Soo Can do, most of the Thai martial art attached to self defense purposes, can show buyers plus instilling in your soul the means not just to maintain with your own eyes on the competency on the very first real danger stains to cure confrontation all in all. pagalworld 2023

  18. It’s really great. Thank you for providing a quality article. There is something you might be interested in. Do you know 호치민 가라오케 ? If you have more questions, please come to my site and check it out!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *