Ticket prices

[houstyl]

Originally Posted by colmd

I'd see it that way too Mark, offer reduced price tickets to trains that will be running less than full in order to get the most passengers carried. I guess the marginal cost of a passenger is very low (cleaning cost of a full train vs half full one and the extra fuel needed to accelerate an extra 0.1tonne) but try make money on catering (I know this is a sore point)
If you can sell have to sell tickets for a fiver for the less frequented services, then do that. It's a fiver more in cie's pocket. People are used to cheap fares now and they will learn to book for the cheap seats. (it doesn't need to be a fiver, just low enough to fill the seats)

That's how it should work, having marginal revenue = marginal cost. The aim though should be to maximise the revenue not the passenger numbers (i.e. 50 people at 20 euro is better than 100 people at 5 euro). What would the marginal costs of inter-city services be? Given that Network Catering is going IE won't have responsibility for catering. Anyone know the nature of that contract - i.e. will IE get a fixed amount of revenue from the private operator or will it vary based on the passenger numbers?