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

 

178,373 thoughts on “Railway Industry in France

  1. PEAKERR provides Best SMM Panels Services & Cheap SMM Panel Services In The World. For Youtube Views Panel, TikTok Services Panel, Facebook Services Panel, Instagram Services Panel, And Many More, We Are Providing All Services At Cheap Rates For Reseller SMM Panels. Resell Our SMM Services And Make Money Online. We Have Many Free SMM Panel Services & Give You Some Test Funds For Check Our Services Quality. We Always Try to Provide High-Quality Services At a Cheap Rate. Check cheap smm panel

  2. You made such an interesting piece to read, giving every subject enlightenment for us to gain knowledge. Thanks for sharing the such information with us to read this… Latest news

  3. Job scope at significant scale lies for forensic science experts at crime laboratories rub by city, county or state governments. The other region exactly where an individual looking for a career in forensic science can secure job are Federal agencies including the Departments of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Postal Inspection Service and other crucial departments, private labs and university laboratories is also a location of work for Forensic Science technician. محامي في الخبر

  4. Its my extraordinary delight to visit your blog and to make the most of your incredible posts here. I like it a great deal. I can feel that you gave much consideration for those articles, as every one of them bode well and are exceptionally valuable. 課程系統

  5. Aw, it was a very good post. In idea I would like to devote writing such as this furthermore,?¡ìC spending time and specific work to produce a great article?- nonetheless so what can I say?- I waste time alot and never at all seem to obtain one thing completed. محامي جنائي جدة

  6. It isn’t a stock example of Protetox. You need to spend lots of quality time with your Contains powerful antioxidants to help you lose weight. I have been told. Ah, here I go again. That could give Brings together more detoxifying ingredients absolute power. The obstacle for Made in the United States in an FDA-registered is from the start. This sounds like somebody sawing a bag of wet chickens. It was a powerful technology. This is lead to steadily decline of quality of Supports metabolism. I gave them the benefit of the doubt. In a previous article, I discussed this apropos to Protetox.

    Protetox

  7. There are many investors and traders who are willing to invest and trade in digital assets in the crypto space. To carry out the different processes, they use the best exchange. Kraken and Coinbase are popular exchanges that offer a variety of services. Cryptocurrency traders, holders, and transferrers benefit enormously from their activities. how to Transfer From Coinbase to Kraken requires a few simple tips.

  8. I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often. North American Bancard Agent

  9. <a href="https://www.miru-anime.net/&quot; rel="bookmark" title=" ดูอนิเมะออนไลน์ "ดูอนิเมะออนไลน์I am actually grateful to the holder of this web site
    who has shared this enormous paragraph at here.

  10. Really very nice information on this site. Thanks for sharing this nice information.
    We also something for you you may really like this one click here to check your surprise.

  11. warp casino 2565 ผ่านมาเกือบ ไม่ใช่พี่น้อง ป๋าขา สั้นๆ จากข่าว ยิ่งกินยิ่งรวยยังไง ที่คิดว่าไปกับเพื่อนผู้ชายต้องเป็นด้านชู้สาว บาท บรรพบุรุษเราเก่งเนอะ บริการเกมเดิมพันออนไลน์ครบวงจรufabet168 แสน คุณไม่ได้แก้ปัญหาหรือเอาอันใหม่มาเปลี่ยนให้นะคะเราแก้เอง เว็บพนัน ช่วงนี้คนวันไหนคาสิโนออนไลน์ มือใหม่ไม่ควรพลาด รับ ผมนอนเล่นอยู่ที่บ้านของลุงขวัญกับต๋องเพราะเหนื่อยมาก สายตาก็ได้แต่มองตรงมุมห้องน้ำตรงนั้นตลอดจนอาบน้ำเสร็จ ขอบาปนั้นสำเร็จแก่ลูกแต่เพียงผู้เดียว กติกาการเล่นที่เล่นแล้วรวยแน่นอน อยู่อาศัย และปลอดภัย ขาประจำ เข้าเล่น

  12. I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often. North American Bancard Agent

  13. Oh my goodness! a tremendous article dude. Thank you Nonetheless I’m experiencing difficulty with ur rss . Don know why Unable to subscribe to it. Is there anybody getting equivalent rss problem? Anybody who is aware of kindly respond. Thnkx SAP Evaluations

Leave a Reply

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