As we get deeper and deeper into the analytics recruitment space, we foresee lot of positive implications of analytics helping the Indian consumer.
Recently I had a long discussion with someone working in Railways (its mom btw :P ) about why there should be a fare increase and why railways is not looking at other avenues to get additional income.
Some of the interesting suggestions that came out were:
1. The Railways have access to passenger data like age, location, sex, income group (based on which class they travel in).
2. They can also collect additional data from passengers while they book their tickets (optionally, this may help passengers get discounts)
3. They have travel history of all passengers (atleast some part of it, passengers who travel regularly might have a particular taste, in terms of food habits, travelling preferences etc).
4. Last but probably the most important, advertisers i.e prospective customers of Railways have non stop access while these people are in travel and not doing anything (most of us relax right?)
Let us take a sample case study. There are 42 Rajdhanis running daily across India. I am assuming that the average travel time of a rajdhani is 16hrs (Average of all trains put together). Let me also assume that every train has one Ist AC, 4 2nd AC compartments and 12 third AC compartments. We are looking at a total of 50+4*60+12*70 = 1130 passengers (btw the actual number is over 1500 passengers/rajdhani).
I have traveled in the Rajdhani many times and those 20 odd hours are really boring. Without internet, my life comes to an standstill. I would be more than happy to give my time to a salesman for 5-10mins.
On the other hand, railways have countless companies in the FMCG domain (for a start) who invest millions in setting up stalls in shopping malls, road side shops, colleges etc. To these companies, railways can give a more targeted audience.
For example if there is a new fairness cream to be launched into the market, Railways gives access to 1000 prospective customers, companies would be fighting to get them. Note here that the companies would engage them in the free time of the passengers and the feedback (and impact) is multifold.
Now, Analytics is a very important aspect here. Because, I as an intermediate would provide all these details real time 15 days before the actual journey to all the advertisers. And may be companies can bid for the target.
Will this work? Can Indian Railways not increase the fare by making money elsewhere? And yes is this a worthy start-up idea?
PS : Little bit of self promotion here :P AbsolutData is hiring. Check out - http://www.huntshire.com/company/absolutdata
