At present, there are six countries of high-speed train operation mainly in the globe, including China, Spain, Japan, France, Germany and Italy, which total mileage accounts for 90% of the world. China is the world's longest high speed train operation of them. What are the facts about their ticket prices? Here we will tell you them and give our opinion.
I. Different prices in different countries
Let’s take some comparisons with each other of them.
The price in China is about 0.04 euro/km, but 0.19 euro/km in Spain, 0.22 euro//km in France, 0.27 euro//km in Germany, 0.25 euro//km in Italy and 0.22 euro//km in Japan. Obviously, China is the lowest in the world.
But the average per capita wage in China is far less than the other countries, so it needs to be added to the per capita wage factor in purchasing power parity in comparisons.
The average monthly wage in Spain is 1800euros, 2210euros in France, 2080euros in Germany, 1870euros in Italy, 1930euros in Japan, but in China only 500euros. After calculation, China is still the cheapest country in price.
In order to make the further comparison, we can calculate the proportion of 100km high-speed train price to the average monthly wages. The results are about 1.05% in Spain, about 0.81% in France, about 1.29% in Germany, about 1.33% in Italy, about 1.14% in Japan, but just 0.80% in China. Seen from it, we know the prices of high-speed train in six countries are very close actually.
II. Ticket price mechanism of high speed train
According to Wikipedia definition, price mechanism is an economic term that refers to the manner in which the prices of commodities affect the demand and supply of goods and services.
Price mechanism
The countries that the high speed train has been put into operations abroad have respectively formed the flexible ticket price mechanisms according to their own situations. Of them, more successful countries are France, Germany and Japan, which success is inseparable from their reasonable ticket price mechanisms. Next we will take them for examples to tell some facts.
a. France
In France, the ticket price for high speed train is made by the government, including the issue of price change and special pricing. When making prices, the government decides a basic price, which can be adjusted with annual change of price index. The railway department can take a flexible way to develop specific preferential price without breaking the basic price according to market supply and demand situation.
b. Germany
In Germany, the operators of high speed train can freely make the ticket price according to market conditions without approval of government which has just right to regulate and control the price. For example, Maximum increase of the price needs to be controlled by German law. The ticket price for German passenger railway is charged by marketing department of company, which can adopt a more flexible mechanism in ticket pricing policy guided by the market demand.
c. Japan
With difference from the others, possible losses must be afforded by high speed operators rather than government in Japan. The operators cannot get any subsidy of high-speed train under complete privatization policy. So ticket price is always seeking to meet the target of profit maximization. Only construction and maintenance of railway network facilities and preferential passenger tickets for some special people such as the disabled, low income group, soldiers can get government subsidies. Therefore, In Japan the operators will not provide ticket price for discount except 5 kinds of area traffic cards with time limit. Even though the corresponding measures of price discount according to busy degree are taken, the general discount range is only controlled in about 1%.
