Kevin Rail : Unreserved high-speed travel in France

[signed]

A vous d'inventer la vie qui va avec

La compagnie ferroviaire Kevin Speed ouvre 3 lignes ilisto - un service de grande vitesse dédié aux habitants des villes moyennes, de la ruralité et du périurbain pour accéder aux métropoles

www.kevin-rail.com

They are looking at starting a full-unreserved hourly service between Paris and Lille,Strasbourg, Lyon

That sound very unsustainable, both on the low-price giving massive overcrowding and the too good to be true pricing.

Our prices and our App are life changers for our frequent travellers, starting at 3€ for a 100km trip during off-peak hours. The app keeps you aware of your usage and ensures that you can stick to a sensible monthly budget.

If we follow the advertised price (yes, it's probably a very bad metric), a Paris-Lyon journey would be under €15, a Paris-Lille roughly €10. Those prices are like 2 to 3x fully reserved now, even on Trenitalia.

Provisional stock is probably going to be Talgo AVRILs

 

[DovaModaal]

A vous d'inventer la vie qui va avec

La compagnie ferroviaire Kevin Speed ouvre 3 lignes ilisto - un service de grande vitesse dédié aux habitants des villes moyennes, de la ruralité et du périurbain pour accéder aux métropoles

www.kevin-rail.com

They are looking at starting a full-unreserved hourly service

"Full-unreserved" is not correct: they are talking about yield management. ICE of Deutsche Bahn is also without obligatory reservation (expensive but flexible Flexpreis tickets), but has "train binding" (Zugbindung) for the cheaper tickets: (Super)sparpreis.

Provisional stock is probably going to be Talgo AVRILs

Have you sources for that?

 

[signed]

Have you sources for that?

This is dumb on my part, mistook them for Le Train, they have an exclusive contract with ALSTOM

"Full-unreserved" is not correct: they are talking about yield management.

They are specifically telling that it's unreserved, of course the price will fluctuate, but it's still turn up, tap in and go

Pas de réservation obligatoire, on passe en tapant avec sa carte ou son téléphone,
et on est facturé en fonction des voyages effectués

 

[30907]

They are specifically telling that it's unreserved, of course the price will fluctuate, but it's still turn up, tap in and go

Even if all the seats are taken, I wonder?

The claimed focus on "medium-sized towns" is interesting, but with the exception of Haute-Picardie (which has lost all its Paris-Nord services but seems to do quite well with longer distance travellers including CDG) they are simply going head-to-head with SNCF. (OK, SNCF don't offer Le Creusot-Macon either.)

Hourly-interval services to these smaller stations is a novel idea, though.

 

[Starmill]

Does the expression "pas de... obligatoire" imply they will offer reservation for those who choose it? Displayed on labels? Or simply that reservation wouldn't be possible?

 

[signed]

Does the expression "pas de... obligatoire" imply they will offer reservation for those who choose it? Displayed on labels? Or simply that reservation wouldn't be possible?

Don't know, it will be probably a UK-like system but we have very little to go off of apart from a track access accord with estimated start date of end of 2028

 

[StephenHunter]

A vous d'inventer la vie qui va avec

La compagnie ferroviaire Kevin Speed ouvre 3 lignes ilisto - un service de grande vitesse dédié aux habitants des villes moyennes, de la ruralité et du périurbain pour accéder aux métropoles

www.kevin-rail.com

They are looking at starting a full-unreserved hourly service between Paris and Lille,Strasbourg, Lyon

That sound very unsustainable, both on the low-price giving massive overcrowding and the too good to be true pricing.



If we follow the advertised price (yes, it's probably a very bad metric), a Paris-Lyon journey would be under €15, a Paris-Lille roughly €10. Those prices are like 2 to 3x fully reserved now, even on Trenitalia.

Provisional stock is probably going to be Talgo AVRILs

"Starting" would be the bare minimum price.