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

 

207,726 thoughts on “Railway Industry in France

  1. 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!  Link

  2. 이런 종류의 사이트를 방문 할 수있는 좋은 기회 였고 나는 기쁘게 생각합니다. 이 기회를 주셔서 정말 감사합니다 토토사이트

  3. Thank you because you have been willing to share information with us. we will always appreciate all you have done here because I know you are very concerned with our. omaslot

  4. ———??????????????????———-. . ******* New Style Of Music On My Channel *******. . _____***ENJOY* MY* MUSIC***_____. . ——–??????????????????———- WELCOMEhttps://www.ufabetwins.info/ufabet-เข้าสู่ระบบ/

  5. This is a great inspiring article.I am pretty much pleased with your good work.You put really very helpful information. Keep it up. Keep blogging. Looking to reading your next post. chicago fillers

  6. Extremely pleasant and fascinating post. I was searching for this sort of data and appreciated perusing this one. Continue posting. Much obliged for sharing. chicago fillers

  7. 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. 대마초삽니다

  8. 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. Im glad to have found this post as its such an interesting one! I am always on the lookout for quality posts and articles so i suppose im lucky to have found this! I hope you will be adding more in the future… Real Raw New

  9. DHL easySHOP excels in logistics management, guaranteeing seamless doorstep delivery of your purchases. Their specialization in swift and fast Middle East forwarding establishes them as the top choice for impeccable service and reliability, ensuring a streamlined and precise shopping experience. Doorway freight cargo & transportation services

  10. ” ‘훌륭한 유용한 리소스를 무료로 제공하는 가격을 알 수있는 웹 사이트를 보는 것이 좋습니다. 귀하의 게시물을 읽는 것이 정말 마음에 들었습니다. 감사합니다! 프리미어리그중계

  11. This is highly informatics, crisp and clear. I think that everything has been described in systematic manner so that reader could get maximum information and learn many things. video summary

  12. Wow, What an Outstanding post. I found this too much informatics. It is what I was seeking for. I would like to recommend you that please keep sharing such type of info.If possible, Thanks. 대마초삽니다

  13. We love what we do and we work from passion 1800flowers also brings you products to help you Blossom handpicked by our staff and sourced globally via the Internet.

  14. situs toto togel Bandar togel terpercaya terbesar dan rumah judi Toto resmi terpercaya di Indonesia saat ini, dengan permainan Toto Macau paling legendaris dan tentunya dapat menawarkan banyak fasilitas dan hadiah bonus lainnya membantu Anda mendapatkan model permainan Toto Togel yang andal.

  15. ทางเข้า UFA: ปรากฏการณ์เด่นของ ufadragon168 ในยุคปัจจุบันนี้ การเดิมพันออนไลน์เป็นที่นิยมอย่างแพร่หลาย โดยมีเว็บไซต์การพนันหลายแห่งที่มีความหลากหลายในการเสนอบริการให้แก่ผู้เล่น แต่หนึ่งในเกมที่ได้รับความนิยมอย่างมากก็คือ “ดราก้อน 168” หรือที่เราเรียกกันแน่นอนว่า “ufa dragon 168” ซึ่งเป็นเกมที่มีแนวคิดที่น่าสนใจและรางวัลที่มากมายสำหรับผู้เล่นที่รายงานตัวมาเป็นสมาชิกของเว็บไซต์ UFA.

  16. Nedime elbiseleri, özellikle İslam dünyasında yaygın olarak tercih edilen geleneksel bir elbisedir. Bu elbiseler, genellikle dantel işlemeler ve zarif detaylarla süslenir. Nedime modelleri, özellikle bayramlar, düğünler ve diğer dini veya geleneksel etkinlikler için tercih edilir. Bu elbiseler, sadelik ve zarafeti bir araya getirir ve giyenlere özel bir görünüm sunar.
    Referans : https://dikisevi.com.tr/

  17. We help them as much as we can. If they need assistance with research, writing, grammar, formatting or proofreading, we provide our assistance to help them build their career.
    venus casino online

  18. This is very Amazing and Very Informative Artical we get alot of Informations from this artical we really appreciate your team work keep it up and keep posting such a informative articles.
    ebet casino

  19. 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. Mascot

  20. I really appreciate this wonderful post that you have provided for us. I assure this would be beneficial for most of the people.
    Mascot

  21. Layak cuma metode bermain yang perlu anda pahami namun ada sebagian keterangan atau istilah penting yang juga perlu anda kenali dalam permainan slot. Mainkan game slot dengan metode slot anjay123 gacor dan peraturan yang ideal karenanya anda akan langsung meningkatkan kans kemenangan.

Leave a Reply

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