Research On Railway Freight Customer Demand And Marketing Methods

Chinese freight traffic has been a seller-oriented market for a long time. The capacity is not able to meet the demand for decades, while railway freight service is limited by capacity and allocated by fixed plan, not really market oriented. Chinese Railways has done a series of marketing research on freight traffic in recent years and made some achievements, however, no systematic and comprehensive research on customer demands has been done. With the implementation of the Middle and Long Term Railway Network Plan, by 2020, the operating length of Chinese Railways will be over 120,000 km, freight traffic will be separated from passenger traffic on main trunk lines, and railway capacity will generally meet the demand of social-economic development. How to take the best advantage of the released capacity, change railway traffic from a seller-oriented to a buyer-oriented market, and increase the share of railway in transport market, are essential to the process of increasing railway benefit, modernizing railway system and speed up railway sound development. In such a process of changing and developing, it is quite important and necessary to analyze various customer demands and bring forward directive marketing methods. This article makes a deep analysis of railway freight customer demands and marketing status, while gives suggestions on how to improve railway freight marketing under new situation based on marketing theory and methods.