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

 

164,932 thoughts on “Railway Industry in France

  1. Laleli çiçekçi olarak internet sitemiz üzerinden hangi çiçek modelini seçerseniz o modelin aynısını hazırlayabilir ve istediğiniz adrese gönderebiliriz. Çiçek siparişinizde istediğiniz gibi mesajınızı da çiçeğinizin üzerine hazırlayabiliriz.
    Site : https://www.fatihcicek.net/

  2. Ödeme işlemi sonrasında sipariş işleminiz hemen tamamlanmış ve çiçeğinizin hazırlanmasına başlanmış olacaktır. Hızlı sipariş sayesinde çiçeğiniz aynı gün içinde belirttiğiniz zamanda adrese teslim edilecektir.
    Site Adresi : https://www.fatihcicek.net/

  3. The rails were often broken because they couldn’t bear the weight of the steam locomotive because they used cast iron. Richard Trevidic failed to solve this and commercialization of steam locomotives failed.송중동출장안마

  4. Although it is a bit cumbersome and additional cost, such as time constraints and additional delivery to the station-destination, you can taste the miracle of rice cakes at 40,000 won to 50,000 won for transportation of hundreds of kilograms of cargo between Seoul and Busan.송천동출장안마

  5. I was just browsing through the internet looking for some information and came across your blog. I am impressed by the information that you have on this blog. It shows how well you understand this subject. Bookmarked this page, will come back for more. เว็บปั่นสล็อต

  6. I’m happy I located this blog! From time to time, students want to cognitive the keys of productive literary essays composing. Your first-class knowledge about this good post can become a proper basis for such people. nice one สมัครแทงบอล

  7. สล็อต เกมสร้างกำไรที่มีความน่าสนใจคงจะไม่ใช่เกมใดเลย สล็อตรถไฟเว็บตรง MEGA GAME นั้นเป็นช่องทางที่คุณนั้นจะสามารถเข้ามาเล่น และสนุกสนานได้เป็นอย่างดีเลยทีเดียว นอกจากนี้ยังเป็นเกมจากค่ายที่โด่งดัง และกำลังมาแรงมากอย่าง Relax Gaming ซึ่งค่ายเกมนี้ก็ยังสร้างความประทับใจ ให้กับผู้เล่นมาค่อนข้างดีแล้วแน่นอนว่าเกม Money Train

  8. Useful information shared. I am very happy to read this article. thanks for giving us nice info. Fantastic walk-through. I appreciate this post.n1klas

  9. Great job for publishing such a beneficial web site. Your web log isn’t only useful but it is additionally really creative too. There tend to be not many people who can certainly write not so simple posts that artistically. Continue the nice writing joker123

  10. Today, I was just browsing along and came upon your blog. Just wanted to say good blog and this article helped me a lot, due to which I have found exactly I was looking. ambbet

  11. It is also an important axis for overland goods transportation, and in fact, it is relatively easy to see tanks, self-propelled guns, and armored vehicles under the name of construction cargo from Gyeongbu Line or Jungang Line, and the USFK has its own freight car in the Gyeongwon Line area.수유동출장안마

  12. Thanks for sharing nice information with us. i like your post and all you share with us is uptodate and quite informative, i would like to bookmark the page so i can come here again to read you, as you have done a wonderful job. a course in miracles author

  13. 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, a course in miracles author

  14. 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: marketing strategies

  15. I finally found great post here.I will get back here. I just added your blog to my bookmark sites. thanks.Quality posts is the crucial to invite the visitors to visit the web page, that’s what this web page is providing. Bus Trips

  16. Your article is truly informative. More than that, it??s engaging, compelling and well-written. I would desire to see even more of these types of great writing. parkview city

  17. 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, slope unblocked

  18. 홀덤사이트

    온라인 바둑이사이트, 온라인홀덤 사이트 추천 HOLDBET입니다. 몰디브 바둑이게임, 포커에이스 등 인증된 게임들만 선별하여 다양한 정보를 제공합니다. 홀덤을 치는법은 생각보다 간단합니다.

Leave a Reply

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