海铁联运铁路集装箱定价与运营优化

铁路部门的改革加快了海铁联运的发展。本文从铁路运输经营人的角度研究铁路与公路运输竞争的情况下,铁路运输服务的定价和运营优化问题。首先利用顾客价值理论分析客户对铁路运输的需求和价格的关系。其次构建以利润最大化为目标的运营优化模型,并设计启发式算法求解。通过与遗传算法比较验证了算法的有效性。然后,得出不同价格水平下的最优班列路线、发班次数以及发班时间。结果表明对定价和运营策略的联合优化能够为铁路运输经营人带来最大的利润。

Railway Pricing and Operation Scheduling in Rail-sea Intermodal Transportation

Facing with such huge container handling capacity, a collection and distribution system in high-efficiency is needed to equip with every large port. However, most activities of collection and distribution are done by truck transportation, which obviously is too homogeneous to meet the demand.On the one hand, since the railway department separates its politics and enterprise, more flexible price making is allowed and service level is making a progress. On the other hand, the national planning stresses the reform of railway transport repeatedly, which also makes great efforts to develop the rail-sea intermodal transportation. 18 railway center stations are built around China by relevant government and national enterprise, and many multi-joint ventures are introduced to develop rail-sea intermodal transport business, which makes the appearance of independent rail transport operator. They are different from the railway company and owe relatively independent transportation operation rights, such as Multimodal Transport Company in Dalian port.
The pricing and operating optimization problem of railway transport service under the competition with road transport service is studied in this paper. In this paper, the formula of two stages model is used respectively:Customer Value=Customer Benefits-Customer Losses=Consumer Surplus Value-Opportunity Costs,Consumer Surplus Value=Consumer Utility-The actual price paid. The relationship between the pricing and the demand of the railway is determined through a two-stage model, and the route combination with the lowest cost is optimized under a certain pricing level. The model is solved by the self-designed heuristic algorithm and improved algorithm. In the third stage, when analyzing the two models, they need to be discussed respectively. The different profitability of railway departments under different pricing levels and demand levels is compared. Then, the ultimate railway department optimal pricing and the corresponding haircut program are determined comprehensively through the formula:Profit=Revenue-In-transit costs-In-station management costs-Handling costs-Average customer waiting costs. Finally, using data from market research, the result of optimal train routes, frequency and time is obtained under different prices. The result indicates joint optimization of pricing and operation strategy can achieve best profit for independent railway operator.
The innovations of the paper are the combination of pricing and operation scheduling in rail-sea intermodal transportation, and the interactions between the two aspects are taken into consideration. The optimal decisions that would achieve the highest profit at last conclude the best price making as well as operation planning.