Comprehensive Optimization Study Of Passenger Ticket Pricing And Ticket Allocation For High-Speed Rail Trains

China’s high-speed railroad construction has achieved considerable results in the past decade or so.By the end of 2022,China has built the world’s largest high-speed railroad network with a mileage of 42,000 km and a coverage rate of more than 94.9% in cities with a population of 500,000 or more.High-speed railroads have become an important mode of transportation for the daily travel of Chinese residents.Behind the rapid development of high-speed railroad network construction,there are still many problems in the operation of high-speed railroads in China.China’s railroad operation organization has been guided by the national policy of unified pricing and pre-allocation of tickets,which is responsible for the main travel needs and social welfare of the society,with a low degree of marketization.The operation of high-speed railroads in China has long been characterized by low ticketing revenue,unbalanced capacity distribution,and the coexistence of virtual and tight train capacity.For such problems,drawing on the solution strategies of the air transportation market,two effective market-oriented measures,ticket pricing,and ticket allocation,can be used in the high-speed railroad ticketing organization to increase ticketing revenue while enhancing the utilization of railroad transportation capacity and provide strong support for the sustainable operation of railroad transportation enterprises.To sum up,this paper will study two aspects of ticket pricing and ticket allocation in high-speed railroad ticketing organizations.Using revenue management theory,a theoretical approach to rationalize ticket allocation and passenger ticket pricing is proposed to improve the profitability of high-speed railroads as an enterprise so that high-speed railroads can better serve the people.The specific research done in this paper is as follows:(1)Introduction of revenue management theory,analysis of the content and main methods of revenue management theory,and determination of demand forecasting,capacity control,and dynamic pricing strategy as research methods to study the problems of this paper.The basic theory and common methods of ticket pricing and ticket allocation in the ticketing organization of China’s high-speed railroad operation organization are analyzed.While the existing studies mainly use differentiated pricing and fare allocation methods under fixed fares,this paper adopts dynamic fare allocation methods and dynamic pricing methods that are more closely related to the dynamic ticketing needs of passengers.(2)In view of the fact that several parallel trains with similar operating schemes are operated on high-speed rail lines in reality,this paper goes further than the existing studies by considering the influence of fares and operating hours on passengers’ ticketing behavior,The generalized travel cost function describing the perceived value of passengers is established by taking into account factors such as the time and cost spent by passengers in the non-traveling operation and the comfort level in the traveling operation.The path is used to describe the whole process of passenger arrival,travel,and exit.(3)Based on the generalized passenger travel cost function proposed in the previous paper,a dynamic ticket allocation model is established with the objectives of maximizing the ticketing revenue of railroad transport enterprises and protecting the travel demand of long-distance passengers,considering the nature of railroad enterprises and social welfare responsibilities.Since the established model is a nonlinear integer programming model,this paper adopts the simulation of passenger ticket demand to obtain the expected value of ticket purchase for each OD in each presale period,transforms the model into a linear integer programming model,and solves it with a linear solver.The data example shows that the model can satisfy the demand of each OD,increase the ticketing revenue while making full use of the train capacity and improving the utilization rate of train seats,and considering the enterprise benefit and protect the social welfare.(4)In view of the fluctuation of OD passenger demand with fare changes,this paper analyzes the guiding effect of fare changes on OD passenger demand,introduces the prospect theory in behavioral decision theory to describe passenger choices in the face of fare changes,and establishes an elastic passenger demand function based on the prospect theory to predict passenger demand under dynamic pricing.Compared with the existing studies,it can better describe the psychological choice behavior of passengers when facing a change in train fares.Compared with the existing research,which assumes that passengers are absolutely rational,the elastic passenger flow demand function based on the prospect theory proposed in this paper can better describe the change in passenger flow demand in reality.(5)Based on the dynamic fare allocation model in the previous paper,we combine the two components of ticket pricing and fare allocation with the elastic passenger flow demand function based on the prospect theory and establish a comprehensive optimization model of dynamic pricing and fare allocation with the objective functions of maximizing ticketing revenue and maximizing passenger kilometers for railroad transport enterprises,and introduce a heuristic algorithm to solve the model.The data example shows that the integrated optimization model can further improve train capacity utilization,increase seat utilization and enhance ticketing revenue compared with the fare allocation model under fixed fares in Chapter 3 of this paper.