is unbundling making the booking more complex?
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High Speed Rail events - so many which one to chose?
It has become more and more apparent to me over the last 3 years that rail events are becoming more and more frequent. I will get a call on a regular basis from different companies looking for sponsorship and delegate participation. We have in the past and no doubt in the future sponsored certain events and have found them informative and providing networking opportunities.
However, now there are a plethora (would that be the collective of events? ;) ) of high speed events all over the world and if you have a favourite and why, let us know!
13 Aug 2010
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Ancillary segments, big revenue for airlines - can railways take the tea trolley a step further?
There is alot of hype today about the introduction of unbundling airline products to make extra revenue for the airlines. Ancillary segments are 'taking off' (excuse the pun) and a recent publication states that it's thanks to the low cost carrier (LCC) model. If we cast our minds back, we remember that when the LCC came onto the scene the ticket price was cheap, but you had to pay for other things that you took for granted on a normal airline.
An electronic miscellaneous record (EMD) record is being launched inorder to facilitate the sales of ancillary fees through the agent channel including the collecting of these fees. Some railways do offer other services through their products, iDTGV is a good example of adding other add ons to your purchase of the ticket for the journey.
22 Jan 2010
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High Speed Rail in America - what's next!
I recently attended the US High Speed Rail association event in Washington DC. There were over 200 delegates, all excited about the 8 billion dollar incentive carrot posted by the Obama government to help kick off high speed rail. Andy Kunz, president of the USHSR association opened the event with the promise that this is part of a long program to gain support for the birth of high speed rail across America. A 17000km high speed rail network is envisaged over the next 20-30 years expected to cost over 600 billion dollars but will create many millions of new jobs. Andy gave examples of other countries that already have committed over 300 billion each on building an efficient high speed infrastructure, namely Spain and China.
Many congress men and women presented to make their pitch to the Obama billions, with California, Florida, Illinois, Oregan, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas making the first moves. Europe is given as the bench mark and many european railways were there to present past experiences and advice, just like we were to remind everyone that once the tracks are built and the trains are ready there is a need to manage the passengers, through the total trip experience. Technology will play a key role in helping ridership reach its expected figures, customer data, loyalty plans, ticketing, booking, reservations, train re-allocation, the list goes on.
26 Oct 2009
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Market share on city pairs, is it taken for granted?
Is it taken for granted that rail will win over the market share for city pairs around the world? I recently commented on a blog in the US about Should Airlines Fear High-Speed that in Europe there is a definate one sided battle when rail travel times for long journeys are reduced to under 3 hours. However, even though the US administration has pledged a large amount of money for high speed network, it may still have to compete against the modern car (or automobile as my US colleagues would say) as the infrastructure is still heavily geared towards this form of transport.
16 Jun 2009










