FGW 1st Class - ongoing discussion of the benefits and their apparent reduction

[whole diary]

[SandTEngineer]

I suspect very few use Anytime First, and very few of those will be paying their own fare......one thing which should be stopped immediately if First class accomodation is being reduced is present/former railway staff using their free/almost free travel privileges to sit in First class - that will free up more space for paying customers.

Part of the terms and conditions for priv pass holders is that they give priority to full fare paying passengers and should give up their seat if there are no spare seats.

There are also a number of busy trains that fgw advise priv pass holders against usin.

Apart if you are retired and then those rules do not apply.

[paul7575]

Q: what is 'yield managed'?

It refers to accurately predicting the number and price of the Advance fares to be made available in order to just fill the expected spare capacity.   In the extreme case, if the anticipated number of full price fares sold for a particular service leaves little or no spare capacity, you just don't offer any First Advance on that service at all...

Paul

[Phil]

Sorry if this is the wrong place, but I did a quick forum search and couldn't come up with any obvious results.

I've just bought some advance 1st class tickets for Melksham to Paddington in mid-May, changing at Chippenham onto what I assume to be a 125. The seat reservations are in coach L, both there and back, which is a new one on me. Are 1st class coaches being re-designated as "L for Lounge", or are trains being lengthened to eleven carriages, or have I missed something that's already happened?

[grahame]

Yield management can be a very effective way of making best use of resources - in the hotel business we're always encouraged to maximise our "RevPAR" which is "Revenue per available room".   Where we're "lucky" (!) is that we're in a competitive business and if we market in such a way that people don't even try to book if we're full, it doesn't generate the same degree of bad blood that a lack of fares at the lower prices does for our TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company).

You can also see yield management over a longer period in use on buses - fares for regular (paying) passenger journeys are pushed through the roof to maximise the income from concessions, even if the actual numbers travelling are reduced and the very people who some might wish to tempt to try the bus are discouraged off by price.

[grahame]

The seat reservations are in coach L, both there and back, which is a new one on me.

Coach L is the new name for the remaining full first class coach as one of the other coaches gets converted to standard.  Name change happens on 18th May, I believe?

[NickB]

Q: what is 'yield managed'?

It refers to accurately predicting the number and price of the Advance fares to be made available in order to just fill the expected spare capacity.   In the extreme case, if the anticipated number of full price fares sold for a particular service leaves little or no spare capacity, you just don't offer any First Advance on that service at all...

Paul

Thanks Paul.
But the problem as I see it is on peak time commuter services where muggins such as myself have paid ^000's for an annual ticket and there are more of us then there will be seats.  The sale of Advance tickets doesn't get adjusted according to season ticket competition I imagine(??).

[Phil]

The seat reservations are in coach L, both there and back, which is a new one on me.

Coach L is the new name for the remaining full first class coach as one of the other coaches gets converted to standard.  Name change happens on 18th May, I believe?

Great stuff, thanks Graham. That makes some sort of sense, at least.

[chrisr_75]

Q: what is 'yield managed'?

It refers to accurately predicting the number and price of the Advance fares to be made available in order to just fill the expected spare capacity.   In the extreme case, if the anticipated number of full price fares sold for a particular service leaves little or no spare capacity, you just don't offer any First Advance on that service at all...

Paul

Thanks Paul.
But the problem as I see it is on peak time commuter services where muggins such as myself have paid ^000's for an annual ticket and there are more of us then there will be seats.  The sale of Advance tickets doesn't get adjusted according to season ticket competition I imagine(??).

And equally it must be difficult to accurately bring any walk up or flexible fares such as open returns into the equation. Unlike airline yield management the railways have the added issue that they don't have an absolute fixed number of seats available and any number of people can just turn up and get on and expect to be seated. I'm not sure if this would be taken into account.

Going by the trains I travel on, first is going to be at best very cosy, at worst standing room only and these are what I would describe as off peak 'shoulder' services

[NickB]

Q: what is 'yield managed'?

It refers to accurately predicting the number and price of the Advance fares to be made available in order to just fill the expected spare capacity.   In the extreme case, if the anticipated number of full price fares sold for a particular service leaves little or no spare capacity, you just don't offer any First Advance on that service at all...

Paul

Thanks Paul.
But the problem as I see it is on peak time commuter services where muggins such as myself have paid ^000's for an annual ticket and there are more of us then there will be seats.  The sale of Advance tickets doesn't get adjusted according to season ticket competition I imagine(??).

And equally it must be difficult to accurately bring any walk up or flexible fares such as open returns into the equation. Unlike airline yield management the railways have the added issue that they don't have an absolute fixed number of seats available and any number of people can just turn up and get on and expect to be seated. I'm not sure if this would be taken into account.

Going by the trains I travel on, first is going to be at best very cosy, at worst standing room only and these are what I would describe as off peak 'shoulder' services

Ditto.

[grahame]

I'm pretty sure that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are going to be very well aware of the potential overcrowding issues and will not want to upset high-paying customers to anything like the extent that they look elsewhere / move to the cheaper end of the train.  This is probably why there may be a dramatic reduction in Advance allocations, especially at the lower price brackets ...

[NickB]

I'm pretty sure that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are going to be very well aware of the potential overcrowding issues and will not want to upset high-paying customers to anything like the extent that they look elsewhere / move to the cheaper end of the train.  This is probably why there may be a dramatic reduction in Advance allocations, especially at the lower price brackets ...

Damage is already done IMO^▸ (in my opinion), as the number of season ticket holders > seats, before walkup/advance/used to work of the railways are even considered.

However, I can fix this problem for Maidenhead customers in 2mins.  Interested?
Make more than one HST^▸ (High Speed Train) stop at Maidenhead per hour*.  Simple.   
If any of the through trains stopped to pick up passengers then we wouldn't all herd on to the same trains.

* yes I know, that apparently isn't possible.  But it was possible 2 years ago when we had more HST's (07.16), which got changed to Turbos overnight.

[ChrisB]

....and you'd all herd onto those extra (non-stop) HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s wouldn't you? :-) - which would defeat the object

Commuters are their own worst enemy sometimes....

[BandHcommuter]

It may be that the relatively low first class yield on the Maidenhead to Paddington route (looks like less than ^10 per journey on an annual, of which they'd lose about a third on downgrade to standard) is considered by FGW^▸ (First Great Western) as a worthy sacrifice provided they keep the longer distance full fare traffic?

[johoare]

It may be that the relatively low first class yield on the Maidenhead to Paddington route (looks like less than ^10 per journey on an annual, of which they'd lose about a third on downgrade to standard) is considered by FGW^▸ (First Great Western) as a worthy sacrifice provided they keep the longer distance full fare traffic?

There could be a lot of admin coming up for FGW issuing refund vouchers from May to the end of the year though for those people who have annual First Class Seaons tickets only to find that First class isn't as they expect anymore and therefore need a refund

[ChrisB]

Doubt it - as already suggested, they'll simply cut the number of Advance 1st tickets available - and expect 4 pax to take up 4 seats at a table....