Tranz Metro provides passenger rail services for the greater Wellington region. Since 2005, Tranz Metro‟s customers have made over 11 million train trips per year on its five lines which lead to Wellington (Johnsonville, Paraparaumu, Melling, Hutt Valley, and Wairarapa) (Metlink, 2010b). This public transportation service is vital to the area‟s effective functioning and economic development; it also has the added benefit of reducing road congestion and pollution to create a „win-win‟ outcome for the population as a whole (GWRC, n.d.b). „More than 11,000 commuters take the train into and out of Wellington each day of the working week‟ (GWRC, n.d.b).
Unfortunately, numerous disruptions to services, caused by a major upgrade of the rail infrastructure, have sapped passenger confidence (KiwiRail, 2010a, p. 13). Given Tranz Metro‟s view that „the single most important part of our business is to get our passengers where they want to go on time,‟ it will need to carefully manage its marketing approach to win back the confidence and business of its customers (Tranz Metro, 2010b).
Despite the headline news of passenger frustrations over cancelled and delayed trains, there is light at the end of the tunnel with the rail network upgrades and new train cars which are coming.
This group project report done during Marketing management course by team members Souradeep Gupta,Jenet Mwanza ,Rodney Porto,Roshan Ramachandran, analyses Tranz Metro from a marketing perspective, including the product market, demand trends, buyer behaviour and promotional approaches. It will then provide marketing recommendations for Tranz Metro to deal with the issues which are raised by the initial analysis.
