Transferring low-cost marketing practices from air to rail services: The Ouigo case

Paul Chiambaretto and Anne-Sophie Fernandez ()
Additional contact information
Paul Chiambaretto: PREG-CRG - Pole de recherche en économie et gestion - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, MRM - Montpellier Research in Management - UM1 - Université Montpellier 1 - UPVM - Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 - UM2 - Université Montpellier 2 - Sciences et Techniques - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School
Anne-Sophie Fernandez: MRM - Montpellier Research in Management - UM1 - Université Montpellier 1 - UPVM - Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 - UM2 - Université Montpellier 2 - Sciences et Techniques - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: More and more airlines have adopted a low-cost business model and many scholars have studied the characteristics of such marketing strategy. While other transport modes have decided to copy and adopt this strategy, we investigate how they replicate this business model. To do so, we in-depth study the operational and marketing characteristics of Ouigo, the new low-cost offer launched by the French rail operator SNCF in 2013. Based on interviews and secondary data (press articles, reports, etc.), we analyze how the rail operator has adapted the low-cost model used by airlines to the high-speed rail industry. We first begin by explaining why rail operators need to implement low-cost strategies and we analyze the characteristics of these low-cost strategies in the air industry. Then, we examine how the key success factors of low-cost carriers have been replicated and adjusted to the rail setting: simplified price policy, increased number of seats per train, use of secondary train stations, exclusive online distribution, e-ticketing, development of ancillary revenues, etc. Finally, a deeper analysis shows that commercial features (e.g. pricing policy) tend to be adapted more easily than technical ones (e.g. network structure) which are more constrained by the industry characteristics. We conclude by giving directions for future improvements for low-cost rail business models.

Keywords: Low-cost; High-speed train; Replication strategy; Intra and intermodal competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-04
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in Research in Transportation Business and Management, 2014, 10, pp.40-44. ⟨10.1016/j.rtbm.2014.05.003⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02050258

DOI: 10.1016/j.rtbm.2014.05.003

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().