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

 

206,411 thoughts on “Railway Industry in France”

  2. Invaluable and also invaluable info will be centrally located with this subject outlined in this article article significance to see the house. idngg

  3. Good post but I was wondering if you could write a litte more on this subject? I’d be very thankful if you could elaborate a little bit further. Appreciate it..! 物理補習

  4. Many homework on the continual hunt along with offstage on the road to winning. Definitely not attached, simple to-fall as a result of wayside; And not investigation, afterward into a path travel toward the black.

  6. In fact your creative writing abilities has inspired me to start my own Blog Engine blog now. Really the blogging is spreading its wings rapidly. Your write up is a fine example of it 數學補習

  7. They’re also cast as heels, allegedly crafted due to the McMahon family’s belief that the far right cost Linda the election. A tag feud between these two seems a natural fit, with Darren Young cast as the good guy. 歷史補習

  9. I essentially discovered your site page and expected that would state that I have truly respected the experience of looking on the web diary sections. 數學補習

  10. Great job for publishing such a beneficial web site. Your web log isn’t only useful but it is additionally really creative too. There tend to be not many people who can certainly write not so simple posts that artistically. Continue the nice writing 歷史補習

  11. Impressive web site, Distinguished feedback that I can tackle. Im moving forward and may apply to my current job as a pet sitter, which is very enjoyable, but I need to additional expand. Regards. fundable.com

  12. 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  Dental Implants

  18. I want you to thank for your time of this wonderful read!!! I definately enjoy every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff of your blog a must read blog! 物理補習

  19. This is such a great resource that you are providing and you give it away for free. I love seeing blog that understand the value of providing a quality resource for free. 數學補習

  25. Persons appreciate shopping for amazing, appealing, fascinating and from time to time attractive aromas for them selves and pertaining to others. This can be executed conveniently along with inexpensively in an on-line perfume shop. 經濟補習

  27. Through this post fully grasp the most important thing, your jewelry will provide you with at least one key term laden internet site backlink an astonishing efficient internet site web blog: idncash

  28. You have done a great job on this article. It’s very readable and highly intelligent. You have even managed to make it understandable and easy to read. You have some real writing talent. Thank you. 英文補習

  32. Once i received onto your site even though getting consideration basically somewhat tad submits. Pleasurable strategy for upcoming, I will be bookmarking at the same time acquire kinds end rises upwards… seo service

  33. Hey friends, let’s level up tga168.net our gaming experience! Join the action with online slots and live football betting – let’s raise the stakes!

  37. Howdy very nice website!!
    I am satisfied to seek out numerous useful information here in the post, we’d like to develop more strategies in this regard, thank you for sharing. . . . . .
    Check this out : slot-online

  40. CRPF personnel are entitled to a host of allowances to ensure their welfare and maintain their morale. These CRPF Salary include Medical Allowance, Education Allowance, and Uniform Allowance, among others. Such allowances assist in covering medical expenses, educational needs of their children, and the cost of maintaining uniforms, ensuring that they can focus wholeheartedly on their duty without any financial burden.

  41. Hi this is somewhat of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding knowledge so I wanted to get guidance from someone with experience. Any help would be greatly appreciated! instagram topmodels naked

  46. This is very educational content and written well for a change. It’s nice to see that some people still understand how to write a quality post.! 歷史補習

  47. Great article! The points you raised are incredibly insightful and thought-provoking. I particularly appreciate how you address the topic from multiple perspectives, offering a well-rounded view. Your writing style is engaging, making it easy to follow along. Looking forward to reading more from you!
    For Ro Repair Service in Noida visit our site

  48. Just admiring your work and wondering how you managed this blog so well. It’s so remarkable that I can’t afford to not go through this valuable information whenever I surf the internet!  英語課程

  49. Thanks for the tips guys. They were all great. I have been having issues with being fat both mentally and physically. Thanks to you guys i have been showing improvements. Do post more. 英國地產

  50. Basically When i understand the item this morning although Used to do many thought processes concerning this and after this I must to learn to see the item from the start mainly because it is quite nicely written. a course in miracles

Leave a Reply

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