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

 

178,196 thoughts on “Railway Industry in France

  1. I’m often to blogging and i in actual fact respect your content. The piece has actually peaks my interest. I’m going to bookmark your content and preserve checking for brand new information. sightcare reviews

  2. A great content material as well as great layout. Your website deserves all of the positive feedback it’s been getting. I will be back soon for further quality contents. KINGCOBRATOTO

  3. There are certainly loads of details that way take into consideration. This is a excellent denote retrieve. I provide the thoughts above as general inspiration but clearly you will discover questions including the one you retrieve the place that the most crucial factor is going to be in honest great faith. 온라인카지노

  4. My business is competent to provide you with the target In this posting fully grasp the obvious way to process the item properly. Fully grasp together with crank out whatever effective. cat beanie

  5. It’s perfect time to make some plans for the future and it is time to be happy. I’ve read this post and if I could I wish to suggest you few interesting things or suggestions. Perhaps you could write next articles referring to this article. I want to read more things about it! REDBOOST

  6. This is my first time visit to your blog and I am very interested in the articles that you serve. Provide enough knowledge for me. Thank you for sharing useful and don’t forget, keep sharing useful info 실시간 스포츠티비

  7. Tel çit ürünleri – Kafes tel ürünleri – Panel çit ürünleri – Tel örgü ürünleri – Bahçe çiti ve Bahçe teli – Çit telleri ve Panel çit fiyatları – Tel örgü fiyatları ve tel çit fiyatı Ankara içi hızlı montaj ekipleri ile sizlere hizmet vermekteyiz. Ankara tel çit fiyatı – Ankara tel örgü fiyatı – Ankara bahçe çiti ve teli yapımı konusunda Jiletli tel çit fiyatı ve uygulaması konusunda uzman ekiplerimiz var sayfalarımıza göz atmak isterseniz aşağıdaki blog adreslerimize bakmanızı tavsiye ederim möbel verschönern

  8. https://leanshop.net/ สำหรับผู้ใดกันที่ต้องการจะทราบเลยว่าการใช้ลีนนอกกับลีนไทยไม่เหมือนกันอย่างไรบ้างนอกจากจะราคาที่ต่างกันอย่างแจ่มแจ้งรวมทั้งปฏิกิริยาครั้งหน้ายาสิ้นฤทธิ์ที่เห็นได้ชัดถึงความแตกต่างแล้ว ยังมีอะไรมากยิ่งกว่านี้ที่ทำให้การชำระเงินซื้อลีนนอกคุ้มกว่าไหม วันนี้ทางพวกเรา Leanshop มากับการเปรียบเทียบความรู้ความเข้าใจรวมทั้งการใช้แรงงานของลีนทั้งสองแบบให้แลเห็นกันอย่างแจ่มแจ้งเลยในทันทีทันใด

  9. “If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve 토토사이트추천

  10. I’m constantly searching on the internet for posts that will help me. Too much is clearly to learn about this. I believe you created good quality items in Functions also. Keep working, congrats! dry needling

  11. Wow, What a Excellent post. I really found this to much informatics. It is what i was searching for.I would like to suggest you that please keep sharing such type of info.Thanks Gaming News

  12. 블로그 검색에서 관련 정보를 검색하는 동안이 게시물을 찾았습니다. 좋은 게시물입니다. 계속 게시하고 정보를 업데이트하세요. 광주유흥

Leave a Reply

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