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Stage |
How do I know I’m here? |
What’s the summary? |
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Stage 3 – Full Steam Ahead |
Demand has mostly recovered across all journeys; full schedules are active and demand levels have stabilized over a few months. |
You are now at a new normal and you’ll need to refresh your strategies, forecasting approaches and price sensitivities accordingly. |
There is light at the end of the tunnel. Consumers start to travel by Rail rather than road and consumer confidence is at the highest it has been for months. Rail operators will be at full capacity and demand has normalized across all OD’s. As we move onto the last stage, operators should focus and act on what the new levels of demand will be and evolve to what could be the “New Normal.”
At this point, passenger purchasing behavior will have likely changed for good. We expect to see a wider traveling pattern across various times of the day and booking more closely to the departure date. While demand will gradually tick upwards, customers will still be overly sensitive to price without just and clear cause.
Revenue Management Systems will need to adapt to these new changes and learn from them so Rail operators can develop new strategies accordingly. This of course may change over time so its key that you find a balance of human intelligence - Revenue Managers who can see and hear what's happening across the industry - and Artificial Intelligence - a system that quickly learns about the new customer behaviors and automatically adjusts and provides accurate forecasts.
While COVID-19 forced Revenue Management teams to stop their existing approach, in some cases switch them off completely, now is the time to re-enable and re-align. Changes to passenger behaviour/sensitivities, frequent schedule shifts, the growing demand on Rail networks and the need for next-generation technology were all inevitably pointing towards a digital transformation in Rail anyway. COVID-19 has simply expedited this change.
We at Revenue Analytics have experienced the need for change across other verticals (Hotels, Airlines, Media) and have been part of that journey in building solutions that will help companies innovate and adapt to market changes. COVID-19 is so different to any other crisis, which is why Rail operators need to put the right plans in place for their Revenue Management System to help support recovery plans come 2021 and their customers will into the future.
The Future of Rail Demand:
