by

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

 

165,299 thoughts on “Railway Industry in France”

  1. I wanted to thank you once again for your amazing web-site you have made here. It is full of useful tips for those who are truly interested in this specific subject, specifically this very post. You really are all really sweet as well as thoughtful of others and also reading your blog posts is a superb delight in my opinion. And thats a generous surprise! Ben and I are going to have enjoyment making use of your recommendations in what we must do in a few days. Our list is a mile long so your tips might be put to beneficial use. 마사지

  5. Thanks for sharing this valuable content. In my view, if all webmasters and bloggers made good content as you did, the web will be a lot more useful than ever before. rr mail

  7. Overall Guides provides detailed information about health tips . The website covers a wide range of topics such as nutrition, physical activity, weight management, stress management, and more. Overall Guides also offers a variety of tools and resources to help you stay on track with your health goals.

  9. I’m curious to find out what blog system you’re utilizing? I’m having some small security problems with my latest website and I would like to find something more risk-free. Do you have any recommendations? free betting tips

  10. My brother recommended I may like this web site. He was entirely right. This publish actually made my day. You can not consider just how so much time I had spent for this information! Thank you! free betting tips

  14. Thanks for sharing with us such a mind-blowing post. I am really impressed with the information you have provided. I will share to my blog mpo slot for great information.

  16. I appreciate your valuable post. The article is very concise and neatly organized, so it fits more easily in the head. I hope to see your good posts again in the future. Thank you again 🙂 안전놀이터

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

  18. There are some attention-grabbing closing dates in this article however I don know if I see all of them heart to heart. There may be some validity however I’ll take hold opinion until I look into it further. Good article , thanks and we wish extra! Added to FeedBurner as properly
    English Sub

  21. A balanced diet is made up 123bet of foods from the five food groups: starchy carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables, protein, dairy and healthy fats.

  22. 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! NSW FAKE ID

  23. That is how to profit with Diaetoxil.

    I’m not an associated with the older generation and I may want to respond that I like Restores your confidence and mental well-being but also there is

    always next year.

    This was part of their usual methods. Life is getting better because I’ve gotten smarter in respect to Relaxes the body and keeps you rejuvenated. I have

    shed some new light on that whole business. That is difficult to believe but quite correct. You really have to get into these amazingly lucid analysis in

    connection with Maintains healthy and balanced metabolic activity in your body that are a heart-felt enlargement of my knowledgeable thoughts .
    Diaetoxil

  33. Bạn có thể cập nhật tin tức về World Cup 2022 bằng cách truy cập website worldcup2022.vn của chúng tôi! Chúng tôi cam kết mang đến cho độc giả những tin tức cập nhật về World Cup 2022 tại Qatar. Chúng tôi muốn thông báo cho bạn về tất cả tin tức, sự kiện và số liệu mới nhất liên quan đến worldcup2022.vn World Cup 2022.

  41. fun88

    Fun88 là một trong những nhà cái trực tuyến hàng đầu tại Việt Nam và Châu Á cung cấp đa dạng các trò chơi cá cược thú vị bao gồm cá cược thể thao, casino trực tuyến, slot game, xổ số. được điều hành bởi OG GLOBAL ACCESS LIMITED. Được sở hữu bởi tập đoàn Welton Holdings LTD, Fun88 vào năm 2009 đã được Ủy ban Giám sát trò chơi Isle of Man cấp giấy phép đăng ký hoạt động một cách hợp pháp trong lĩnh vực online casino và giải trí.

  44. Pretty good post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Any way I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon. Big thanks for the useful info  Logistics providers

  45. หลากหลายรูปแบบเกมสล็อตออนไลน์ ที่มีให้เลือกมากกว่า 1000 เกม มาให้คุณเล่น แถมโบนัสแตกเยอะที่สุดในตอนนี้ ดาวน์โหลดง่ายๆเลยย แค่คลิก สล็อตเว็บตรง เรามีแอดมินที่ไว้คอยให้บริการตลอด 24 ชม.

Leave a Reply

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