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

 

163,928 thoughts on “Railway Industry in France”

  2. Довольно хороший пост. Я просто наткнулся на ваш блог и хотел сказать, что мне очень понравилось просматривать ваши сообщения в блоге. В конце концов, я подпишусь на ваш канал и надеюсь, что вы скоро напишите снова! social media marketing Спасибо за этот замечательный пост, я нахожу его очень интересным и очень хорошо продуманным и собранным. Я с нетерпением жду чтения вашей работы в будущем.

  4. i am always looking for some free stuffs over the internet. there are also some companies which gives free samples.

  5. Informasi KIP Kuliah di UNP Kediri! Semua jurusan ada. Sekarang di UNP Kediri juga ada KIP KULIAH (Bidikmisi) lohh dengan kouta terbanyak pastinya. Bagi yang terkendala biaya ekonomi tidak usah kawatir tetep bisa melanjutkan kuliah di UNP, berlaku juga untuk lulusan 2020/2021 masih ada kesempatan buatmu. Selengkapnya visit to
    KIP Kuliah UNP Kediri

  6. Melalui DIBACA, kamu akan memperoleh insight berupa direktori akses informasi termasuk e-resources, open access, perpustakaan digital, dan sumber belajar.

    Tidak hanya direktori, akan tetapi panduan akses ke informasi juga disediakan. Sehingga kamu akan lebih mudah dalam memahami sumber informasi yang hendak dipilih dan dikunjungi. Akses melalui Sumber informasi untuk pustakawan DIBACA

  9. i am always looking for some free stuffs over the internet. there are also some companies which gives free samples.

  18. Great post and straight to the point. I dont know if this is actually the best place to ask but do you guys have any thoughts on where to employ some professional writers? Thx…

    slotxo auto

  19. I searched a lot on this topic and finally found it. I read your post and was very impressed. We visit this site frequently to appreciate your comments. keo nha cai

  20. Dazzling post. I Have Been examining about this issue. So a commitment of thankfulness is all together to post. Totally cool post. It ‘s incredibly exceptionally OK and Useful post.Thanks. freelancing

  24. As far as me being a member here, I wasn’t aware that I was a member for any days, actually. When the article was published I received a username and password, so that I could participate in Comments, That would explain me stumbuling upon this post. But we’re certainly all members in the world of ideas. offpage seo service

  26. This is a truly good site post. Not too many people would actually, the way you just did. I am really impressed that there is so much information about this subject that have been uncovered and you’ve done your best, with so much class. If wanted to know more about green smoke reviews, than by all means come in and check our stuff. BRAND STRATEGY CONSULTING FIRMS

  27. I’m able to see which you are a specialist at your field. Your facts might be helpful for me. HYDERABAD ESCORTS A debt of gratitude is so as for all your help and wishing all of you the fulfillment in your business.

  31. Meaning to commence a independent business hosted strategy getting the your service and / or vendors not only to associates nearby, but unfortunately to a lot people will likely be within the web normally. cash how does seo work

  32. Thanks for sharing about this and best VIP female Escorts in Lahore and call Girls services Pakistan, Islamabad, and Karachi. Get your desired call girl in your doo

  34. This is often a great inspiring article.I am beautiful much satisfied together with your great work.You put truly exceptionally accommodating data. Keep it up. Keep blogging. Looking to perusing your another post 바카라사이트

  37. We are a group of volunteers and opening a new system in our community. Your web site provided us with valuable information to work on. You’ve done an impressive job and our entire community will be grateful to you. essay writing services

  40. I recently found many useful information in your website especially this blog page. Among the lots of comments on your articles. Thanks for sharing. pg slot

  44. Just unadulterated magnificence from you here. I have never expected something not as much as this from you and you have not baffled me by any extend of the creative energy. I accept you will keep the quality work going on. I am another client of this site so here I saw different articles and posts posted by this site,I inquisitive more enthusiasm for some of them trust you will give more data on this points in your next articles. There is a high demand for this advanced JS framework among web developers. It lets them develop robust websites and applications for different verticals. And these are the reasons which push business to hire. This specific is generally clearly basic and in addition exceptional truth alongside without a doubt reasonable and besides in fact valuable My business is seeking find ahead of time intended for this particular helpful stuffs. 메이저사이트목록

  50. An outstanding share! I’ve just forwarded this onto a colleague who was conducting a little homework on this. And he in fact bought me breakfast due to the fact that I stumbled upon it for him… lol. So allow me to reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!! But yeah, thanx for spending time to talk about this issue here on your blog. Wow, superb blog layout! How long have you been blogging for? you made blogging look easy. The overall look of your website is excellent, as well as the content! Howdy! I could have sworn I’ve visited this blog before but after browsing through some of the posts I realized it’s new to me. Nonetheless, I’m definitely happy I came across it and I’ll be book-marking it and checking back often! well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyhow, just wanted to say great blog! 사설토토사이트

Leave a Reply

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