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

 

166,140 thoughts on “Railway Industry in France

  1. This could be moreover a terrific content my spouse and i honestly appreciated investigating. It can be by no means daily my spouse and i offer the chance to watch one thing. casino site

  2. hiya there, simply became alert on your weblog through google, and found that it’s surely informative. I’m gonna be careful for brussels. I can appreciate in case you hold this in destiny. A number of people will be benefited from your writing. Cheers! Very satisfactory put up. I just stumbled upon your blog and needed to mention that i’ve sincerely loved surfing around your weblog posts. In spite of everything i’ll be subscribing on your rss feed and i desire you write once more quickly! Superb article it its without a doubt informative and revolutionary preserve us posted with new updates. Its turned into absolutely valuable. Thanks lots. Sincerely admire this super put up which you have supplied for us. Terrific website and a notable topic as properly i certainly get amazed to read this. It’s incredible. 토토사이트

  3. Wow, cool post. I’d like to write like this too – taking time and real hard work to make a great article… but I put things off too much and never seem to get started. Thanks though. best casino site

  4. Find latest official mobile phone, smartphone, android, feature phone etc updated prices in Bangladesh 2022 at MobileDokan com

  5. Find latest official mobile phone, smartphone, android, feature phone etc updated prices in Bangladesh 2022 at MobileDokan com. phone

  6. This is really good idea that eliminate delay on toll roads by collecting the electronic tolls. According to the public are suffered with this toll problem and seeking help from the government to get rid of this problem. slot

  7. Hi there! Nice material, do keep me posted when you post something like this again! I will visit this blog leaps and bounds for more quality posts like it. Thanks… my website

  8. Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and wanted to say
    that I’ve truly enjoyed browsing your blog posts. After all I
    will be subscribing to your rss feed and I hope you write again soon!
    토토

  9. This type of article that enlighted me all throughout and thanks for this.This going to be excitement and have fun to read. thank to it. check this out to for further exciting.
    온라인카지노

  10. News Sow is a Professional News Platform. Here we will provide you only interesting content, which you will like very much.

    We’re dedicated to providing you the best of News, with a focus on dependability and Daily. Our About-us page was created with the help of the About-us Generator

    We’re working to turn our passion for News into a booming online website. We hope you enjoy our News as much as we enjoy offering them to you.

  11. As we all know that it is not so easy for us to crack UPSC exam without hard work and work hard and motivate ourselves for success, here we have shared upsc motivation status and thoughts which come from many great people. upscquestionpaper.com Click here

  12. Hello there, just became alert to your blog through Google,
    and found that it’s really informative. I’m gonna watch out
    for brussels. I will appreciate if you continue
    this in future. A lot of people will be benefited from your writing.
    파워볼게임

  13. Interesting blog! Is your theme custom made or did you download it from somewhere? A design like yours with a few simple adjustments would really make my blog shine. Please let me know where you got your design. Many thanks
    토토

  14. Your blogs further more each else volume is so entertaining further serviceable It appoints me to befall retreat encore. I will instantly grab your RSS feed to stay informed of any updates. pg slot true wallet

  15. I am overwhelmed by your post with such a nice topic. Usually I visit your blogs and get updated through the information you include but today’s blog would be the most appreciable. Well done! surga tekno

  16. Thanks for the marvelous post! ✅ I really enjoyed reading it, you might be a great author. I will certainly bookmark your blog and definitely will come back sometime soon. I want to encourage you to continue your great writing wealth builder

  17. Your content is nothing short of bright in many forms. I think this is friendly and eye-opening material. I have gotten so many ideas from your blog. Thank you so much. 메리트카지노

  18. Your content is nothing short of bright in many forms. I think this is friendly and eye-opening material. I have gotten so many ideas from your blog. Thank you so much. 메리트카지노

Leave a Reply

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