The difference in price between tickets for the same train purchased 59 days before departure and 1 day before departure can reach 300%.
The travel booking service OneTwoTrip analyzed train ticket purchases for five months of 2017 and found out how many days before departure service users buy train tickets.
The most popular periods for purchasing tickets are the day before departure (9.1%) and on the opening day of sales – 59 days before (8.65%),
when ticket prices are the best. At the same time, the difference in the cost of a ticket for the same train can be either 35% or 300%.
“What surprised us most from the research was the share of extremely rational travelers who buy train tickets in as much time as possible. Compared to 2016, the share of these clients increased by 3%. The main driver here is the desire to save money, as well as to better plan the trip,” Arkady Gines, development director of OneTwoTrip.
The reason for such jumps in ticket prices is dynamic pricing on Russian Railways and FPK trains, as a result of which the fare depends not only on the season, but also on the day of the week and traffic volumes. The minimum markup may be on a less popular route, and, for example, tickets between Moscow and St. Petersburg may rise in price by 2 times or more between the start of sales and the date of travel. In addition to Moscow and St. Petersburg, among the leaders in early booking of railway tickets are southern destinations: Anapa, Novorossiysk, Sukhum, Adler, Lazarevskoye. Most likely, this is explained by the desire of travelers to plan their vacation in advance, choosing the most convenient places, and at the same time save as much as possible.
The next most popular options in terms of purchase dates are: 2 days before the trip (6.5% of travelers purchase train tickets) and directly on the day of train departure (5.3% of travelers). The least popular purchase of train tickets is 37-39 days before the travel date.
