Introduction
Indian Railways, abbreviated as IR, is the state owned railway company of India, which owns and operates most of the country’s rail transport. It is overseen by the Ministry of Railways of the Government of India.
Indian Railways has one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting over 18 million passengers and more than 2 million tones of freight daily. It is one of the world’s largest commercial or utility employers, with more than 1.4 million employees. The railways traverse the length and breadth of the country, covering 6,909 stations over a total route length of more than 63,327 kilometers (39,350 mi). As to rolling stock, IR owns over 200,000 (freight) wagons, 50,000 coaches and 8,000 locomotives.
Railways were first introduced to India in 1853. By 1947, the year of India’s independence, there were forty-two rail systems. In 1951 the systems were nationalized as one unit, becoming one of the largest networks in the world. IR operates both long distance and suburban rail systems on a multigauge network of broad, metre and narrow gauges. It also owns locomotive and coach production facilities.
Some facts about Indian railways
– The total route length of Indian railway is approximately 63,000 kms.
-The first electric train was opened in February 1925 on Mumbai suburban railway on Mumbai Victoria Terminus (VT) -Kurla branch line.
-As on 31st march, 2004 the electrified route was 17,503 kms.
-The Indian railway largest in the Asia and second largest in the world after the USSR.
-The total number of railway station in India is more then 7,000.
-The Indian railway operates approximately 7,525 trains’ daily covering 7,031 railway stations.
Service marketing environment-
Service marketing environment of Indian railways can be scanned by considering six major environmental forces, like demographic, economic,socio- cultural, natural, technological and political legal. As demographic environment consists of the age mix of population, literacy and education level. Economic environment consists of income distribution of different people. The rich grew by 400% in urban areas and 200% in rural areas. Socio- cultural environment consists of influence of religion, languagues and customes that shapes the values and attitudes of customer preferences, habits and behavior.
Service marketing mix
– 7P’S of service marketing mix of Indian railways can be explained as below
Place( distribution) –
includes
-service delivery point
-Stations, city booking agencies, out agencies
-places should be customer friendly.
-places should be well maintained.
Products
-Rajdhani ,Shatabdi trains
-Janshatabdi trains
-Long distance mail and express trains
-Unreserved passenger trains
-Commuter suburban Trains
-Millennium Parcel trains
Promotion –
-Each Product features to be communicated to customer in that segment using suitable media(lot of weakness).
-advertising
-personal selling
-publicity
-sales promotion
Physical evidences –
-Actual Expperiferal evidence
-A Reserved Ticket
– Cheque Book
-Essential erience of service
Process –
Process Exist are complex on railways like some processes are:
-reservation process/ refund process / claim process.
-Communication process.
-Entraining/Detraining Process.
People –
-Service personal
-Customers
-Careful selection and training
The service segmentation-
Indian railways has segmented their service to all class of people like rich, poor by providing different standards of facility in different compartments, for example – you can find different class in the rail like A.C-1,A.C sleeper, A.C 3-Tier, chair car, sleeper class m/e, sleeper class ord, second class m/e, second class ord. these are the service segmentation of Indian railways by which they are serving different categories of people. In all these service segmentation Indian railways is providing different facilities and charging different fares. Classes of travel on Indian trains.
The abbreviations on the left (1A, 2A etc.) are the ones used in the ‘all India’
‘Trains at a Glance’ timetable, I have always used these on reservation forms and have never had a problem, write the abbreviation of the class in which you want to travel, next to the word ‘Class’ on the reservation form.
- 1A = First Class air-conditioned (AC1)
- 2A = 2 Tier air-conditioned (AC2)
- 3A = 3 Tier air-conditioned (AC3)
- FC = First Class NOT air-conditioned
- EC = Executive chair class, air-conditioned
- CC = Chair class, air-conditioned
- SL = Sleeper Class, NOT air-conditioned
- 2S = Bookable second class seat, NOT air-conditioned
- II = Unreserved 2nd class, NOT air-conditioned
Customer requirement and customer expectation
– Booking from abroad is a bit difficult affair if you are totally new to the whole scheme of things. Through Internet you can directly book most of the trains
-All ‘A’ and ‘B’ category stations to be made model stations.
– Help of architects to be taken in all division to make stations building more beautiful, comfortable and with modern look.
– Modern facility such as ATM, cyber cafes etc. to be provided at all major stations.
– A pilot for giving the publicity rights for an entire division to a single agency, through open tender.
-Four popular trains to be provided with world class passenger amenities and interiors
Service recovery strategies
-Improving the after sales services.
-Admit and apologies.
-rectification of any error
-Compensate
-Minor performance lapse need monitoring
Quality concern
Quality means watching the services from customer prospective.
The main quality concern of Indian railways are
– To provide hygienic condition inside the trains.
– Avoiding as much as possible the delay in the trains schedule.
– Safely is also one of the concern for Indian railways.
– Impoving the infrastructure to world class level of standards.
Integrated gap model of service quality
The central focus of gap model is the customer gap, the difference between customer expectations and perceptions.
GAP-1
Not knowing what customer expect .ie what are the expectation of customer of Indian railways. which can be due to inadequate marketing research.
GAP-2
Not selecting the right service design and standards. Indian railways have a good service design but not reached to that level of standards to meet all customer expectations.
GAP-3
Not delivering to service designs and standards. This can be due to deficiency of human resource policy of Indian railways. And may be due to failure in meeting supply and demand. Because of the huge population of India.
GAP-4
Not matching performance to promises. This can be due to lack of integrating services marketing communication and ineffective management of customer expectation by Indian railways.
In this way the gap between expected quality and perceived quality can be calculated by Indian railways.
Employee and customers role in service delivery
Both employee and customers play a major role in service delivery. Indian railways have a huge amount of employee that are working in day and night shifts to provide services to the customers. The computerization of whole reservation process of Indian railways have reduced a lot of burden of railway staff. Now railways tickets can be booked online, which is very convenient for the customers or passengers that are coming from abroad to book their tickets online. Indian railways have segmented their compartments according to the difference in facilities provided to customers. There are separate compartments for different kind of material that is parcelled from one place to another.
In this way both employee and customers play a major role in service delivery.
A potential customer comes for enquiry regarding the number of trains between two particular places, their timetable, the availability of tickets, fares, etc. The person at the counter refers to the centralised database and reservation system and accordingly gives information. If the information is favourable( tickets available or in waiting list), and if the potential customer has decided to make the reservation, the database system accordingly sends information to the reservation counter. The person at the reservation counter issues ticket to the customer. Then the customer arrrives at the railway station on the date o the reservation made. He hires a coolie who takes the luggage to the train in which the customer is supposed to board, and deposits the luggage in the boogie where his seat is reserved. The customer to make sure that there is no mistake in the reservation/ or to see the status of his reservation checks the PNR status. The list stating the PNR status, is put up at the railway station on a notice board by the railway employees.Once everything is in order, the customer/passenger boards the train. The journey starts with the motorman starting the engine as per the instruction of rail traffic operators. The journey is then monitored and guided by the rail traffic operators through signals and instructions at stations and driven by motormen. Meanwhile during the journey, the ticket checker arrives with a list of pasengers and information on their journey. He checks the infomation given to him with the tickets of the passengers. Subsequently, the attendant in the bogie, provides food and bedding facilities to the passengers. This facility is provided by the stores and maintained by other railway employees. Many other railway employees provide pasengers with food and beverage facilties at different stations. The customer/passenger finally reaches the destination and gets down from the train with his luggage. He hires a coolie who takes the luggage wherever the passenger instructs him to on the railway premises.
Pricing of services by Indian railways –
Fares on Indian railways across categories are among the cheapest in the world. In the past few years, despite a recessionary environment, the Indian railways has not raised fares on any class of service. on contrary there is a minor dip in fares in some categories. Ticketing services is available at all major and minor railway stations across India. In this way Indian railway has set the prices according to different facilities given in different compartments.