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

 

163,667 thoughts on “Railway Industry in France

  1. I can see that you are an expert at your field! I am launching a website soon, and your information will be very useful for me.. Thanks for all your help and wishing you all the success in your business. ufabet auto

  2. Empire Business Brokers, LLC is one of two sister companies that serve businesses in every stage of their development from start up, to business growth, to high performance organizations, and then to the transfer of the business to the next owners.
    Empire Business Brokers, LLC is focused on exit planning and business acquisitions. Small Business Coach Associates assist business owners to make more, work less and enjoy their business. We use an award-winning process to assist our clients.
    sell a business in greenville sc

  3. 有料アダルトサイトの入会を考えているのなら、有料アダルトサイトを徹底的に比較し、ランキングで評価しているサイトをご覧になることをおすすめします。当サイトは正しい知識でわかりやすく、安全な有料アダルトサイトを紹介しています 無修正

  4. This is highly informatics. crisp and clear. New Nebosh course in Chennai IGC first called IG1 the same as IGC1 in the past syllabus so this is a management-oriented theoretical paper and the second unit is IG2. IG2 is a practical assessment.

    Nebosh course in chennai

  5. 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, slotxo

  6. BLISS “Ultra” Kratom Extract Liquid is made with a “Proprietary Extraction Process.” This creates and environment in which the highest yield of active Kratom Alkaloids can be distilled. It is because of this unique process that we are able to achieve extreme potency and the signature “BLISSFUL” effect.
    Buy Kratom Capsules

  7. Website: http://maxdroid.net/

    Maxdroid is a blog for tech lovers and mobile gaming enthusiasts. We share the latest games and mod apps on Android. All content is completely free and updated every day. Did you know, there are millions of apps and games available on Android app markets (Official and third party included).

  8. Evidently, it will be more convenient for you to opt for the later because of the safety and ease.

    However, just realizing that booking makeup services in Lahore at home is not enough, you need to find the best providers.
    Makeup Services in lahore

  9. Get more space and a good return for your old or unwanted car standing in your backyard with Surf Coast Car Removals professional Instant cash for cars in Geelong. With long years of expertise in this field, we provide our customers with the best and fastest cash for car services in Geelong. No matter what

    make, model or condition of the car you have, our highly experienced team will visit your place and provide you with a quick evaluation of your car to give you instant cash for car services.

    Whether your car got rust, damaged, old or strain on the local environment, we provide the best price to our customers, making us the best and trusted cash for a car service provider in Geelong.

  10. Bitkiler ilaç tedavisinde ya da hastalıkların seyrinin azaltılmasında kullanılırken belli bir oranda kullanılması gerekir. Bunun içinde hangi hastalığa ne iyi gelir sorusunun yanı sıra nasıl yapılır, nasıl kullanılması gerekir ve ne kadar kullanılmalıdır? Gibi soruların yanıtlarını da bilmek gerekir. Bilinçsizce tüketilen bazı ilaçlar hastalığın seyrini daha da artırabilir. Bir anlamda bitkiler hem tedavi edici hem de zehirleyici olma özelliğine sahiptir. İnternette ise tüm bu bilgileri bulabilirsiniz. Örneğin grip olduğunuzda hangi karışımı yapmanız ve ne tür meyve ve sebze yemeniz gerektiğini rahatlıkla bulabilirsiniz. Bu da sizin iyileşme sürecinizi daha hızlı hale getirmiş olur.

    Kaynak : https://sifaliyasam.com/

  11. Thanks for an interesting blog. What else may I get that sort of info written in such a perfect approach? I have an undertaking that I am just now operating on, and I have been on the lookout for such info. judi tembak ikan

  12. Orhangazi haberleri günlük son dakika bilgileriyle okuyucuya duyurulurken aynı zamanda siyasi, spor ve ekonomi gibi konulara da geniş yer verilmektedir. Şehrin birçok alanda geçim kaynağı vardır. Bunun için en çok yetişen ya da en çok tercih edilen bir meslek grubundan söz etmemiz gerekmez. Daha önce Bursa’ya yolu hiç düşmemiş birisinin kaybettiği çok şeyinin olduğunun altını çizmek gerekir. Çünkü Bursa Türkiye’de mutlaka gezilmesi, görülmesi gereken yerlerin başında gelir. Özellikle Uludağ kış sezonunda binlerce yerli ve yabancı turisti ağırlayarak rekorlar kırmıştır. Bursa’ya bugün dünyanın birçok ülkesinden insanlar gelmektedir.

    Kaynak : https://www.avamhaber.com/

  13. Payid19.com is the best bitcoin payment gateway platform compare with others. This platform remain as trusting market where there is so kind of easy functions for every users.Payid19.com is a vetted community of professional teams assisted by an AL-powered process. As a most visited platform including cryptocurrency payment gateway, our mission is to help our users to fastest and most effective service for using of bitcoin trade. This is the secret recipe behind our fast development.

    Reference : https://payid19.com/

  14. Camps.intuit.com is a client account management portal for Quickbooks desktop. Therefore, with the assistance of this portal, you’ll manage your Quickbooks desktop account in one place.

    camps.intuit.com

  15. Canon allows you to install and set up a Canon inkjet printer and ensure that you receive outstanding printing results.

  16. Microsoft365.com/setup
    is an official portal to activate and start your Microsoft 365 product including office apps, cloud services and other collaboration services. You’ll need to Sign In and enter the Microsoft 365 product key.

  17. CLick this link!
    The Railroad Industry is engaged in hauling freight. Rail operators enable the efficient flow of goods from producers to consumers and are therefore a vital part of the broad economy. With roots dating back to the 1800s, moving freight by rail is an old-line business that remains capital-intensive and cyclical.

  18. Just want to say your article is as surprising.
    The clarity on your publish is simply spectacular and that
    i could think you are a professional in this subject.
    Thanks For This Great And Very Good Post share with us. I really appriciate you

    windowsloader.org

  19. I admit, I have not been on this web page in a long time… however it was another joy to see It is such an important topic and ignored by so many, even professionals. I thank you to help making people more aware of possible issues. custom mc patches

  20. I saw your post you are doing such great work. Now I am telling you about a business. We are working in the USA but we are delivering over solution throughout the world. We also offer wholesale discounts as well
    boxes for invitations

Leave a Reply

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