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

 

206,810 thoughts on “Railway Industry in France”

  2. I just wanted to compose a quick message so as to express gratitude to you for all the wonderful tricks you are showing on this site. My prolonged internet research has at the end of the day been honored with reasonable know-how to share with my companions. I ‘d say that we website visitors actually are undeniably fortunate to be in a superb community with so many perfect people with helpful techniques. I feel very lucky to have used your entire webpage and look forward to plenty of more cool minutes reading here. Thank you once more for all the details. judi online

  9. Really a great addition. I have read this marvelous post. Thanks for sharing information about really awesome and very informational i have this similar website
    Aspadol

  11. White wine is highly known for getting very sensual and classy alcoholic drink. It is mainly accessible in yellow or golden color. White wine is widely appreciated all across the continents because of its delicious flavour. One can anytime pair white wine with white meat so as to produce a light meal looks delicious. But, to support all you starters for better wine merging we’ve organized this white wine chef for starters. toto slot

  13. I recently came across your article and have been reading along. I want to express my admiration of your writing skill and ability to make readers read from the beginning to the end. I would like to read newer posts and to share my thoughts with you. محامي تجاري الرياض

  15. I Visit Your Bolog This Is so Impresive. And I read Your All Article. Your Work
    Is Very Good Your Article Writting Is Professional I realy Like Your Work.
    Meet

  17. Nice post. I find out something more difficult on different blogs everyday. Most commonly it is stimulating to learn content using their company writers and use a little something from their website. I’d prefer to use some while using the content in my small blog whether you do not mind. Natually I’ll give you a link on your own internet blog. Thank you sharing. เว็บพนัน

  21. مقالات مرتبط با حیوانات خانگی در ملوسک پت. نگهداری از حیوانات خانگی مانند سگ و گربه نیازمند تحقیق و دانش
    .کافی در زمینه تغذیه گربه و سگ، واکسیناسیون آن ها و رفتار با آن ها می باشد . بنابراین مطالعه مقالات مربوط با نگهداری حیوانات خانگی می تواند مفید باشد.
    غذای سگ

  22. I admire this article for the well-researched content and excellent wording. I got so involved in this material that I couldn’t stop reading. I am impressed with your work and skill. Thank you so much. hideaki anno quotes

  25. 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. kingsoftranslation

  29. You will find a lot of escort and call girls providers all over Pakistan, but supplying Escorts in Karachi absolutely has already been notable. That is partially on account of this social states in Karachi s broadly speaking conservative modern society seeing gender. Aside from this, Karachi’s geographic spot and intensive audience also have caused it to be a perfect destination for a arrange visitors at Karachi
    Escorts in Karachi

  32. I really like your website.. pleasant colors & theme. Performed anyone design this website yourself or even did a person hire an attorney to make it work for you personally? Plz act in response since I!|m planning to style and design my personal weblog and also would want to realize wherever you became that from. thanks Get cash offer for my home

  39. We are a group of volunteers and opening a new scheme in our community. Your website provided us with valuable information to work on. You have done an impressive job and our whole community will be grateful to you. tiktok reseller panel

  40. สล็อต สล็อตออนไลน์มือถือ สล็อตเว็บดัง สล็อตเว็บที่ดีที่สุด สล็อตเว็บอันดับ1 เกมส์สล็อตฟรีเครดิต เกมส์สล็อตเล่นยังไง.

    สล็อต

  41. สล็อต ufabet ufabetstar365 เว็บพนันบอลออนไลน์ ยูฟ่า – UFA อันดับ1 ไม่มีขั้นต่ำ ฝากถอนออโต้รวดเร็ว เล่นได้ทุกค่าย แทงบอล บาคาร่า สล็อต เกมยิงปลา บาคาร่าสายฟ้า สล็อตพีจี เว็บตรงสมัครสมาชิกฟรี คาสิโนออนไลน์ Ufabet Casino บาคาร่า รูเล็ต เสือมังกร ยูฟ่าเบทสตาร์365

  44. What i do not realize is actually how you’re no longer really much more smartly-favored than you may be right now. You are so intelligent. You recognize thus considerably in the case of this topic, produced me personally consider it from numerous various angles. Its like men and women don’t seem to be fascinated until it’s something to do with Woman gaga! Your personal stuffs nice. At all times maintain it up! tiktok reseller panel

  45. Now i am definitely content to uncover this page in addition to performed delight in examining practical articles or blog posts placed in this article. This thoughts on the article author seemed to be brilliant, appreciate it with the write about. advice

  46. Extremely pleasant article, I appreciated perusing your post, exceptionally decent share, I need to twit this to my adherents. Much appreciated!.  Sweet 16

Leave a Reply

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