Revenue Management and Container Transportation Planning: From the Operational to the Tactical Level

Revenue management concepts are rarely used when planning operations for container transportation, but new trends are showing a significant increase in the interest of practitioners and scientific research community alike. Most of the work is still to be done, however. At the tactical level of decision-making, different types of customers and different fare ranges, associated with different types of requirements, could be explicitly taken into account, since this is more and more frequently done at the operational planning level. We propose such a conceptual setting in which revenue management policies are applied both at the operational and at the tactical planning of activities on a container transportation network. In this context, we highlight some of the key elements related to the information feedback needed between the operational and the tactical levels. An example of a MIP (mixed integer programming) formulation for scheduled service network design with asset management and revenue management considerations applied to barge container transportation is presented. Using the corresponding numerical results we also discuss different ways the quality of the design solutions may be evaluated: economic impact, resource utilization, and quality of service.