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

 

165,333 thoughts on “Railway Industry in France

  1. Yes i am totally agreed with this article and i just want say that this article is very nice and very informative article.I will make sure to be reading your blog more. You made a good point but I can’t help but wonder, what about the other side? !!!!!!THANKS!!!!!! friend of bus in singapore

  2. You have performed a great job on this article. It’s very precise and highly qualitative. You have even managed to make it readable and easy to read. You have some real writing talent. 먹튀검증

  3. I know this is one of the most meaningful information for me. And I’m animated reading your article. But should remark on some general things, the website style is perfect; the articles are great. Thanks for the ton of tangible and attainable help. 안전놀이터 순위

  4. Only aspire to mention ones content can be as incredible. This clarity with your post is superb and that i may think you’re a guru for this issue. High-quality along with your concur permit me to to seize your current give to keep modified by using approaching blog post. Thanks a lot hundreds of along with you should go on the pleasurable get the job done. 토토사이트

  5. Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed browsing your blog posts. After all I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!
    발기부전

  6. We must be more passionate about everything espeCially when it comes in our nature and environment check this out also >>
    파워볼

  7. You have made some decent points there. I looked on the internet for more information about the issue and found most people will go along with your views on this web site
    토토사이트

  8. Hello, this is my first time at your site or blogger.
    i,m on the processes on the learning be a good blogger…
    to make the improvement at my blogger, i decide to surfing at google..
    when surfing at google.. i find your site or blogger…
    i hope i can learn something new for my blog..

    your site or blogger alr give me some inspiration for what i should do to my blog..
    thanks you, for your hard work to provide such a nice blog, i hope i can be a good blogger someday…

    Please Visit My Blog at : daftar situs judi online

  9. Online slots, a comprehensive online casino that is 100% stable, is the best slot website. Our ทางเข้า สล็อต 789 will have slots, lottery, boxing, casino, online bounce. online slots web in Thailand that provides a complete service Excellent service 24 hours a day.

  10. Hello… DropshipDragon provides dropping for quality, affordable products direct from China to your customers. Perfect for eBay sellers and website owners alike!… firearms for sale

  11. I and also my pals were actually following the good suggestions found on your web page while immediately developed a horrible feeling I had not expressed respect to the site owner for those strategies. All of the young men are actually so happy to read all of them and have truly been tapping into these things. Thank you for genuinely quite kind and then for going for some ideal themes most people are really needing to be aware of. Our own honest apologies for not expressing appreciation to earlier. website

  12. I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post. 먹튀검증

  13. It’s appropriate time to make some plans for the future and it’s time to be happy. I have read this post and if I could I wish to suggest you some interesting things or tips. Maybe you could write next articles referring to this article. I wish to read more things about it! video conferencing software

  14. An impressive share, I with all this onto a colleague who has been performing a small analysis for this. Anf the husband actually bought me breakfast since I found it for him.. smile. So let me reword that: Thnx for your treat! But yeah Thnkx for spending time to talk about this, I feel strongly about this and love reading more about this topic. If at all possible, as you grow expertise, does one mind updating your blog post with increased details? It really is highly useful for me. Huge thumb up in this text! tan lotion sunless

  15. I found that site very usefull and this survey is very cirious, I ‘ ve never seen a blog that demand a survey for this actions, very curious… sprzet sportowy

  16. Immediately a bit of guests will continue across hotel rooms and obtain tied bus excursions, however, many with all the fancy car applications provide your own tour specialist. That just might help you browse through the neighborhood well you could an individual’s chose chauffeur. ??? ???? 온라인홀덤

  17. Wow! Such an amazing and helpful post this is. I really really love it. It’s so good and so awesome. I am just amazed. I hope that you continue to do your work like this in the future also gryfy

  18. 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: exotic car rentals in miami

Leave a Reply

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