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

 

164,200 thoughts on “Railway Industry in France

  1. Thank you for such a well written article. It’s full of insightful information and entertaining descriptions. Your point of view is the best among many. ufabet 363

  2. Lebenswert is a premium organic formula that is made with organic milk from grass-fed cows. It is free from synthetic nutrients and additives, ensuring that your baby gets the purest form of nutrition possible. Buy aptamil

  3. As local industry experts, we understand just how heart-breaking water damage can be for Melbourne homeowners. When a home or commercial property floods, it can completely destroy valuable items and, if left, can even impact the structural integrity of your property

    water damage carpet

  4. Its a great pleasure reading your post.Its full of information I am looking for and I love to post a comment that “The content of your post is awesome” Great work. 呪術廻戦

  5. Are you looking for the top websites to daily techtvdownload wallpapers for the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra? Look nowhere else! To make it simple for you to find the ideal wallpaper for your device. We have compiled a list of the top 10 websites. Where you can download the S22 Ultra wallpaper

  6. ACDSee Photo Studio 9 for macbrust the free mactool Mac is a powerful and amazing photo editing tool. It is designed for Mac users to edit and enhance their photos. This software offers different kinds of tools to fine-tune your photos.

  7. I’m going to read this. I’ll be sure to come back. thanks for sharing. and also This article gives the light in which we can observe the reality. this is very nice one and gives indepth information. thanks for this nice article… sales engineering

  8. 출장안마

    KAKAO 출장안마 출장마사지 서울/경기 선입금,예약비없는 후불제출장 퀄리티가 검증된 한국인매니저 출장안마서비스 다년간의 운영 노하우와 품격있는 특별한 서비스로 모시겠습니다.

  9. I admire what you have done here. I like the part where you say you are doing this to give back but I would assume by all the comments that this is working for you as well. liba

  10. Great info! 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. 황제투어

  11. unuha

    UNUHA .com adalah website yang memberikan materi-materi tentang PENDIDIKAN mulai dari tingkat sekolah dasar, sekolah menengah pertama, sekolah menengah atas, dan perguruan tinggi. tema atau ulasan topik yang diberikan mudah di pahami dan dimengerti oleh peserta didik, dan bisa memberikan penjelas serta menampung pertanyaan-pertanyaan dari peserta didik maupun pengunjung online website UNUHA

  12. . Understudies entering the ninth to twelfth grades are subject to locale limitations. The all-year booking doesn’t make a difference to understudies who live in the Wake District region.live draw hk

  13. Great info! 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. 베트남 밤문화

  14. підтвердження Торгово-Промислової Палати України про українське походження товару і з 2018 року випускається за міжнародною системою управління якістю ДСТУ ISO 9001:2015. противогаз

  15. The Exploration Triangle Park region has earned an abundance of respect from significant magazines, including Forbes, Cash, and Business Week. The town has acquired the reputation of being near perhaps the most wired city.live draw hk

  16. Great info! 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. 베트남 풀빌라

  17. prostadine was created to put you once and for all in these prostate problems prostadine is the only natural supplement on the market in a drop form that has nine powerful natural ingredients that work

  18. Netflix is one of the most popular streaming services available in the United States. It can be accessed through many different devices, including smart TVs. But what if your Netflix experience isn’t running as smoothly as it should be? If you’re having trouble streaming content on your smart TV, then you may need to reset Netflix. Let’s take a look at how to do this.

    Birmingham wire

  19. Thank you again for all the knowledge you distribute,Good post. I was very interested in the article, it’s quite inspiring I should admit. I like visiting you site since I always come across interesting articles like this one.Great Job, I greatly appreciate that.Do Keep sharing! Regards, Vancouver bitcoin

  20. First of all, thank you for your post. bitcoincasino Your posts are neatly organized with the information I want, so there are plenty of resources to reference. I bookmark this site and will find your posts frequently in the future. Thanks again ^^

  21. Tidak hanya keseruan dan kesenangan, taruhan ini juga memiliki keuntungan yang nyata. Di mana lagi penjudi judi bisa berjudi online dan memenangkan uang besar di slot88 sekaligus. Mesin slot, dimainkan secara digital, dimana keuntungan dan kesenangannya jauh lebih unggul dari mesin slot88 konvensional. Para penjudi Indonesia masih berlomba-lomba bermain slot dibandingkan dengan jenis judi lainnya. slot online terpercaya

Leave a Reply

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