The rail industry seems to run a very unsophisticated model for revenue management of discounted fares and could, potentially, learn a lot from the airlines that have become masters of the process over many years.
Take for example a Ryanair or easyJet (or, to an extent, a British Airways too):
* For any given route, there will be a lowest fare the airline charges, and uses in publicity / advertising - these fares will be available on some date(s) on some flights on the route, but not necessarily on all flights on a route
* The publicised lowest ("from") fare may be available to buy when reservations for a specific flight start, but may not (i.e. there may be non of the very lowest fares available on some dates / flights when demand is forecast to be high or when the airline percieves the market will stand a higher starting price) - i.e. when demand is expected to be high (peak travel periods, dates when there may be strong last minute / business travel demands), the airline may start selling a specific flight at a higher fare than the minimum
* Beyond the lowest fare, there will be a series of increasing fare levels up to a maximum fare, which is the full unrestricted fare (usually fully changeable / refundable)
* Each level of fare will have a number of seats allocated to it - this number could be anything from zero to the total capacity of the aeroplane
* Typically when a very cheap fare sells out, the next fare up is sold, etc.
* But customers may chose to buy a higher fare that the lowest available, in order to obtain flexibility such as free changes or refunds. Customers buying higher fare tickets may affect (i.e. reduce) the availability of lower fare tickets
* The number of seats being sold at each level of fare may be changed by the airline at any time, and is not necessarily dependent on bookings of that fare
* The airline will never let it be known how many seats are available at each fare, nor how many have been sold at each fare
* If a flight sells more slowly than expected, extra lower fare tickets may be made available - lower sometimes than the fare being asked for before the fact that the flight was selling slowly was detected. So lower fares that had sold out might suddenly become available again, and a flight could be offered at a certain price one day, and at a lower price the next
* If a flight is selling more quickly than expected, especially if more expensive flexible tickets are selling faster than expected, availability of lower fares may be restricted or closed off completely, without passengers having booked all of the originally available lower fare tickets. A cheap fare may be available one day and not available the next, even if no tickets at that fare have been sold
So in the airline model, if you book as soon as ticket sales for a flight start then you might get the lowest advertised flight, but you might not. If you wait, a flight will probably cost you more that if you'd have booked earlier, but it might not if the flight is selling slowly. It suits airlines to offer low fares and have passengers booking as soon as possible so that they have some fare revenue locked in, but they to do it in such a way as to not restrict the availability of higher priced tickets that are typically bought at the last minute. Airlines are also very sensitive to empty seats and will almost always seek to as many seats as they can even if the fare paid only covers the incremental cost of moving each extra passenger. There is also an ancillary revenue model in airlines (selling food, drink, baggage, etc) that operates on the premise that even if a ticket is sold with no margin, a valuable contribution might well be obtained from the passenger from sale of other services. So to an outsider or casual traveller, trying to second-guess the airline model and get the very cheapest fare can occasionally be something of a lottery - but many experienced airline travelers accept the sitation and see getting the very best fare as a part of the process.
The Advance fare rail model on the other hand seems to operate on the basis of offering a predetermined number of tickets and price-A, a number at price-B, a number at price-C, etc. When price-A is sold out, price-B is sold, and when price-B is sold out, price-C is sold, etc. I accept that there may be some occasions when tickets at a certain price levels are cut off, but there doesn't seem to be the level of dynamic elasticity in the number of seats available based on ongoing / forecast demand that is practiced by airlines.
I accept that TOCs are less sensitive to trains running with empty seats than are the airlines and that they have little or no dependence on sale of add-on services, and that they have to cater to a walk up market that doesn't exist in airlines. However, it does surprise me that TOCs don't get a bit more creative in offering more cheaper tickets when demand is unexpectedly low, and cut off cheap tickets artificially when demand appears to be high.
Andy
