East Coast Main Line Increases Profits, Revenues and Improves Services with Industry-Leading Price Optimization Approach

JDA Rail Price Optimizer enables UK rail operator to increase annual revenues by 2 percent, driving incremental value of over $18 million per year

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--JDA^® Software Group, Inc., The Supply Chain Company^®, today announced that East Coast Main Line has increased profits and revenues and improved services using industry-leading price optimization solutions from JDA. A whitepaper titled “East Coast Main Line’s Journey to Increased Profits, Revenues and Service With Price Sensitive Revenue Management,” highlighting the challenges, strategies and results achieved by East Coast Main Line following its JDA pricing and revenue management solutions implementation, is available online at jda.com.

“With three quarters of our passengers booking in advance, we’re able to easily analyze data as well as monitor and understand our customers’ behavior to accurately price our seats”

East Coast Main Line runs fast and frequent passenger rail services along one of the UK’s most heavily traveled passenger train networks. The government-run company currently carries more than 18 million people annually between London and major cities in northeastern England and Scotland.

In the face of an increasingly volatile economy and highly competitive market, competing against other rail companies, airlines, coaches and cars, East Coast Main Line recognized that it needed to embrace a more innovative pricing strategy using price optimization to recommend optimal ticket prices up to the departure of each train. As a result of deploying JDA^® Rail Price Optimizer, and carefully measuring the results achieved, East Coast Main Line has been able to increase annual revenues by an ongoing 2 percent, which contribute to the 6 percent in revenue benefits attributed by East Coast Main Line to JDA’s solutions since 2003. This has resulted in the company increasing the value of its franchise by more than $18 million per year, realizing a return on investment within months of implementing JDA’s solution.

East Coast Main Line achieved the following operational benefits by deploying JDA Rail Price Optimizer:

• Significant revenue improvements by optimizing existing customer demand
• Explicit modeling of the demand-to-price relationship, enabling better understanding of the impact of different pricing strategies and maximize revenue potential by being more responsive to market trends
• The ability to more confidently price each train, prompting more consumers to book early and travel on less high-demand services, as well as appropriately price high-demand services
• Improved business planning companywide as forecasts were shared, leading to improvements in areas from staffing to catering

“With three quarters of our passengers booking in advance, we’re able to easily analyze data as well as monitor and understand our customers’ behavior to accurately price our seats,” said Suzanne Donnelly, head of revenue, East Coast Main Line. “Having measured the benefits of each of our JDA implementations, we can confidently assert that we have been able to increase our revenues by 6 percent using JDA’s rail pricing and revenue management solutions.”

“The internet has provided far more price transparency than ever before. With 24/7 access to online information, consumers are becoming hyper-sensitive to price, meaning traditional revenue management models are no longer effective,” said Peter Shearer, vice president, industry strategy, JDA Software. “At the same time in today’s budget-constrained environment, rail operators must be able to demonstrate a hefty return on any new investments they make. The returns that East Coast Main Line has achieved using JDA Rail Price Optimizer speak for themselves and provide an extremely strong business case for rail operators to implement the latest pricing and revenue management technology.”

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About JDA Software Group, Inc.

JDA^® Software Group, Inc., The Supply Chain Company^®, offers the broadest portfolio of supply chain, retail merchandising, store operations and all-channel commerce solutions to help companies manage the flow of goods from raw materials to finished products and into the hands of consumers. JDA’s deep industry expertise and innovative cloud platform help companies optimize inventory, labor and customer service levels. As a result, JDA solutions have become the standard for the world’s leading retailers, manufacturers and distributors. To learn more, visit jda.com or email [e-mail].

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