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

 

176,503 thoughts on “Railway Industry in France

  1. Hello I am so delighted I located your blog, I really located you by mistake, while I was watching on google for something else, Anyways I am here now and could just like to say thank for a tremendous post and a all round entertaining website. Please do keep up the great work. Layar138

  2. Hi there! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a team of volunteers and starting a new project in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us beneficial information to work on. You have done a extraordinary job! margin คืออะไร

  3. If you want to meet a real escort service, visit our website and contact us. You can book Pune Escorts any time from your current location. We have handpicked call girls who are expert in all sexual activities as per the demand of the clients.
    https://www.nehatondon.in

  4. I simply couldn’t go away your website before suggesting that I actually enjoyed the standard information an individual provide on your visitors? Is gonna be back frequently in order to inspect new posts. Make Money Online

  5. Thanks for sharing this wonderful content. its very interesting. Many blogs I see these days do not really provide anything that attracts others but the way you have clearly explained everything it’s really fantastic. There are lots of posts But your way of Writing is so Good & Knowledgeable. keep posting such useful information and have a look at my site as wellสมัครบาคาร่า

  6. This is my first time i visit here. I found so many entertaining stuff in your blog, especially its discussion. From the tons of comments on your articles, I guess I am not the only one having all the leisure here! Keep up the good work. I have been meaning to write something like this on my website and you have given me an idea. Varget powder

  7. Normo Host provides affordable Web Hosting solutions for almost all Digital projects and hosting requirements.

    We offer the best-dedicated hosting and dedicated server solutions,
    VPS, control panels license, and hosting management application WHMCS license for web hosting businesses.

    With our VPS Hosting services, you will get the experience of a dedicated server at a very competitive price, Unlimited Bandwidth, Unlimited Mysql database. Our Un Managed VPS (Virtual Server) uses a Kernel-based Virtual Machine, a virtualization infrastructure that guarantees you hosting that is powerful, easy to use and blazing fast.

    Most powerful and scalable VPS servers at rock bottom price with a Free SSL certificate and control panel. you’ll choose the disk space, RAM, and CPU as per your requirements. For the incredible performance of our VPS servers, we offer RAID 10 with the best quality HDD/SSDs and inbuilt firewalls. Our VPS servers are the simplest in the industry which used virtualization such as KVM. We are one of the best Hosting companies that provides one click installation. Our VPS hosting is best for Ecommerce, Corporate websites & also for personal and Online marketers.

  8. stpeterspcny เว็บตรง 100% เล่นเบทต่ำสุด 1 บาท บริการลูกค้าอย่าง Vip เว็บสล็อตที่มีคนเล่นมากที่สุด ทางเข้าเล่นผ่านมือถือ สล็อตเว็บตรงดีที่สุดเล่นสนุกได้ตลอดปี เว็บสล็อตแท้ไม่มีประวัติเสียด้านการเงิน ได้รับรางวัลยอดเยี่ยมปี 2021 จากต่างประเทศ

  9. voleyplayabarcelona เว็บตรง เครดิตฟรี เล่นกับเว็บตรงดีกว่าเว็บทั่วๆ ไปอย่างแน่นอน ด้วยเหตุผลที่ว่า มีการออกรางวัลที่มากกว่ากว่าเว็บอื่นๆ ไม่ว่าจะเป็นการลุ้นรางวัลฟรีสปิน หรือจะเป็นการรับอังเปาในการเปิดป้ายรับรางวัล และมาตรฐานของเกมในแต่ละเกม จะออกผลตอบแทนรางวัลที่คุ้มค่า

  10. worshiponthewaterfront สล็อตออนไลน์บนมือถือเกมใหม่ล่าสุด ค่ายพีจี พนันออนไลน์อันดับ 1 ที่กำลังมาแรงที่สุดในประเทศไทยในตอนนี้ ด้วยโปรโมชั่นที่น่าสนใจ จะเลือกเล่นคาสิโนออนไลน์หรือเกมสล็อตออนไลน์ ในรูปแบบต่างๆ ก็มีให้เลือกเล่นจำนวนมาก เดิมพันผ่านลิ้งค์ได้แล้ววันนี้ที่หน้าเว็บไซต์สุดเรียบง่าย เข้าได้โดยไม่ต้องโหลดโปรแกรม เล่นเดิมพันเกมออนไลน์ที่ดีที่สุด ได้ตลอดเวลา

  11. fotografiartesl พบกับประสบการณ์และมาตรฐานความสนุกแบบใหม่ บนเทคโนโลยีที่มีความทันสมัย เว็บไซต์ของเราเตรียมความพร้อมและกระจายโอกาส ให้คุณได้สัมผัสสัมผัสความเพลิดเพลิน กับพื้นที่ทางเข้าที่มีเทคโนโลยีพร้อมเสิร์ฟความบันเทิงให้คุณได้สนุก แบบครบวงจร เตรียมความพร้อมให้คุณสัมผัสความเพลิดเพลิน บริการสุดพิเศษบนเทคโนโลยีที่คัดสรรมาเพื่อสมาชิกโดยเฉพาะ

  12. I was surfing the Internet for information and came across your blog. I am impressed by the information you have on this blog. It shows how well you understand this subject. Eyeliner tattoo

  13. how to Stake polkadot: Digital asset staking is becoming increasingly popular in the crypto space for different reasons. Pololudot is a popular protocol that connects blockchains and sends data and value. Many users have been impressed by its popularity in the crypto world over the past several decades.

Leave a Reply

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