314 seats (out of general seats which in turn are 60% of total) were vacant before making of chart, but after charting the number should be substantially larger as most of tatkal seats (about 30% of total) and some of the VIP quota seats (about 10% of total) are likely to be vacant. Of about 1100 acc seats (14 coaches) in the train, general seats should be about 660 (60%) and with 314 vacant seats, the number of sold tickets should be 614-314 = about 350. This means 50% slab tickets were sold in very few numbers. Occupancy of train should be much less than 50%. This is the status of BPL shatabdi which is most profitable amongst Shatabdies with a profit of about Rs 2,49,994/- per trip (as indicated in recently constituted Bibek Debroy committee final report). What would be the status of other Shatabdies which were earlier...
more... less profitable and even loss making.
Earlier almost 100% of seats were booked in most of the trains, but now first 40-50% seats (with 40% premium) for seats may easily get filled up. But how many of the last 50% (with 50% premium) seats shall be filled up is a matter of interest. Except in a small percent of crack trains and during peak season, there are chances that substantial number of seats may go vacant.
Railways shall break even (as far as the surge pricing is concerned) i.e. collect revenue equal to normal fares with 100% occupancy even if 76.7% of seats are booked with surge price for ACC, SL, ACII and 78.6% of berths in ACIII. Any booking less than that is a failure of this policy.
If booking is above these break even levels then we should be prepared for extension of the surge fare to SFs & M/E trains.
Even if IRlys manage to break even by selling around 80% of seats (occupancy otherwise is almost 100%), it is a poor marketing strategy as it will be loosing more than 20% of its passengers to its competitors (air/road operators). These extra passengers shall add to their economies of scale and they shall be able to reduce the price provide new and better services and even attract the 40%, & 30% premium slab passengers.
There is one benefit for passengers in reserved compartments i.e. reduction in over crowding as very little paxs would like to pay 50% premium and still buy RAC/ Waitlisted ticket.
Another benefit is this policy shall give opportunity to air/road operators to provide much needed alternatives (other than rail travel) for comfortable travel especially over medium & long distances. And once that happens, IRlys will lose one option to earn profits i.e. go an adding as many ac coaches to popular lang & medium distance trains and earn profit.
