Wherever the journey takes you

Optimization of a premium service offer in personal transportation

 

The customer

With around 230,000 employees, the DB corporation is one of the largest employers in Germany. The Deutsche Bahn AG is the largest train transportation company in Europe, the second largest company in the transportation and logistics industry worldwide and number 1 for mobility in Germany.

The project: Price management – determination of the optimal willingness to pay for an efficient BahnCard for a frequent traveler

Determination of an optimal price with the corresponding maximum profit additional service components for the 1st and 2nd class network card.

The task

The NetzCard is the predecessor to the MobilityBahnCard 100. Except with a few exceptions (for example, DB car train), this allows for as many rides in all trains from DB and on all selected bus lines and trains from many other transportation companies. A fee is required for the ICE sprinter and the DB night train.

2hm & Associates analyzed the following themes in this context:

  • disclosure of the travel habits of the owners of a personal NetzCard
  • evaluation of the most important services in the eyes of the customers in order to check to see how much Deutsche Bahn AG is already considering the customers' wishes.
  • more interests from the customers in regards to completely new services that have not yet been offered
  • exploration of the maximum willingness to pay from these customers in order to be able to answer the question about price changes based on customer reactions

The realization/challenge

In line with the written pre-study, far more than 1000 owners of the personal NetzCard were asked in 1999 about their travel habits and desires.

For the determination of the willingness to pay, an adaptive conjoint analysis was used, by which both selected NetzCard owners (users) from the pre-study and also non-users were asked for a question.

The result

The results delivered valuable notes in regards to the travel habits of the owners of the Netzcard. Furthermore, clear policy recommendations for an optimal, demand-based price and for the accepted price differentiation between 1st and 2nd class were determined. The service benefits of the NetzCard were also increased significantly. These points led to additional sales and to a price that generated an increased marginal return.