Business travelers’ ticketing,refund, and exchange behavior

This study investigates when and why business travelers make changes to their airline itineraries. Results are based on tickets purchased over a 9-month period by employees of a university in Atlanta, US. The ability to track repeat passengers purchases across time allows analysis of how passenger cancellation behavior differs by frequency of travel as well as by carrier. Results indicate that frequent travelers and those purchasing from Delta versus AirTran are more likely to request ticketing changes. Other factors influencing cancellation behavior include the time from ticket purchase, time before flight departure, and whether the itinerary is for the outbound or inbound portion of a trip.     

Drivers and barriers to online airline ticket purchasing

Although online sales of airline tickets are growing, many travellers are still reluctant to use the web as a purchase channel. Given the cost advantages of online sales for airlines, it is useful for them to know the main drivers and barriers affecting the use of the Internet to purchase tickets. This study analyses the influence of risk, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use on the airline ticket online purchase intention. The results of a survey show that perceived purchase risk and perceived usefulness exercise a direct influence on airline ticket purchasing intentions, while perceived ease of use has an indirect influence through perceived usefulness. Psychological risk, performance risk and privacy risk are the predominant perceived risk dimensions in airline tickets purchase, whereas social risk and time loss risk are negligible.     

城际铁路与城市轨道交通售检票互联互通模式研究

为更好的满足国家对现代化城市群发展的要求,提高乘客在城市群内铁路和地铁间换乘的便捷程度,应该加快实现城际铁路和城市轨道交通售检票系统之间的互联互通。基于旅客和管理主体对售检票系统联通的便利需求,提出实名制实体/虚拟一卡通、无碍换乘的实名制实体/虚拟一卡通、二维码互换、一码通、一证通、刷脸通6种方式的互联互通便利模式适应性比较分析,采用符合现阶段铁路和城轨售检票模式的互联互通解决方案。     

The value and usage of ticket flexibility for short haul business travellers

Fully flexible business class and “full economy” airline tickets are aimed at meeting the needs of business travellers whose travel requirements may change after a ticket is purchased. The provision of these products has implications for airlines’ revenue management systems, which may lead to overbooking and denied boarding. Low-cost carriers have developed a method by which tickets can be changed only when required. This paper investigates the usage and value of ticket flexibility by business travellers as the popularity of high fare-fully flexible tickets has fallen in recent years. A survey of 284 business travellers showed that business travellers change their flight arrangements in only 32% of short haul trips. A stated preference study investigated the likelihood of respondents to change tickets in three hypothetical scenarios. The results indicate that to extend a business trip for business purposes travellers are confident that their company will bear the cost of changing a ticket valuing additional time at about £54 per hour but that the value of personal time when travelling is fairly low at £15 per hour. The study concludes that business travellers do not need to change their tickets often and that when they do, low-cost carriers offer a more cost-efficient method of providing ticket flexibility. This pay-for-usage approach to ticket flexibility undermines the traditional airlines’ pricing structures and this has contributed to the reduced, relative value of business class and full economy class tickets for short haul air travel.     

铁路无线售补票系统安全模式研究

根据铁路无线售补票系统安全体系建设目标,在分析系统安全需求的基础上,提出采用双向认证的方式对用户和终端设备进行管理的方案。对铁路无线售补票系统可能的承载网络cdma20001x的安全性,包括无线安全接入、空中接口数据机密性保护等进行了分析,指出其可能存在的安全漏洞,以及建立和完善系统应做好的工作。     

铁路列车统一补票系统架构优化及演进

铁路列车统一补票系统是列车客运作业的重要组成部分,其易用性直接关系到列车旅客的服务质量。通过分析原有铁路列车补票系统中列车移动补票终端,由于各厂家独自研发而导致的业务功能、网络架构、数据格式以及业务管理不统一等问题,提出了铁路列车统一补票系统,实现了总体架构及网络架构等方面的优化与改进,并从系统总体工作流程、地面管理部分功能及列车移动补票终端3部分解析系统功能,明确铁路列车统一补票系统架构演进过程中的细节优化之处,并剖析此过程中涉及的数据安全、补票票价计算及交易完整性等关键技术。铁路列车统一补票系统进一步为列车客运服务提质增效提供系统支撑,系统成果也提高铁路客票系统的席位利用率。     

Public transport pre-pay tickets: Understanding passenger choice for different products

Growing cashless services in the Sydney metropolitan region are motivated by the clear supply-side benefits associated with the prepayment of public transport fares. This paper examines the effect on prepay following the ‘MyZone’ fare and ticket reform in New South Wales introduced in April 2010. ‘MyZone’, introduced two new discounted and standardised prepay products, including a new, multimode ticket. Whilst these changes had implications for all public transport providers in the Sydney Metropolitan area, it had significant ramifications for the many private bus operators who, for the first time, could provide and accept tickets, which integrated their services with the state-run rail, ferry and bus network.With empirical data collected from two surveys of passengers of a private bus operator in northern Sydney this study analyses the ticket purchasing behaviour of passengers both before the fare reform, when passengers only had access to operator-specific prepay products, and post-MyZone, when the new standardised prepay products were available. The results clearly show there are significant differences in the characteristics of passengers using multi-modal versus pay-as-you-go tickets and that this difference is driven largely by age, income and whether or not the journey involved interchange. Prior to MyZone, prepay users were easily predicted and the fare and ticket reform was successful in transitioning some cash users to prepay but prepay users were no longer predictable unless separated into prepay product groups. This suggests that a policy designed to exploit the supply-side benefits associated with cashless services needs to consider that introducing only one prepay product will not address the market need of frequent users. Passengers who continued to pay cash after the fare and ticket reform showed high sensitivity to public transport cost and are those passengers with the lowest incomes. This raises policy questions of how to mitigate against the upfront costs often associated with prepay to transition less affluent, but frequent passengers, onto cashless ticketing.     

铁路列车统一补票系统架构优化及演进

铁路列车统一补票系统是列车客运作业的重要组成部分,其易用性直接关系到列车旅客的服务质量。通过分析原有铁路列车补票系统中列车移动补票终端,由于各厂家独自研发而导致的业务功能、网络架构、数据格式以及业务管理不统一等问题,提出了铁路列车统一补票系统,实现了总体架构及网络架构等方面的优化与改进,并从系统总体工作流程、地面管理部分功能及列车移动补票终端3部分解析系统功能,明确铁路列车统一补票系统架构演进过程中的细节优化之处,并剖析此过程中涉及的数据安全、补票票价计算及交易完整性等关键技术。铁路列车统一补票系统进一步为列车客运服务提质增效提供系统支撑,系统成果也提高铁路客票系统的席位利用率。     

How motivation,opportunity and ability can drive online airline ticket purchases

Despite the resources airlines are devoting to increasing e-commerce, the key drivers of online airline ticket purchases have been little explored. This study analyzes how motivation, opportunity and ability influence patrons’ intentions to purchase tickets online and the features that influence online airline ticket purchases. A sample of online purchasers of airline tickets in Spain is examined.     

On the fairness of airlines’ ticket pricing as a result of revenue management techniques

Pricing and availability of tickets have always been a source of confusion for customers in transportation industries. What is the best time to buy tickets? Why passengers taking the same flight might pay significantly different prices for the same seat? Why round trip tickets between two cities sometimes become cheaper than the one-way flights between them? Is it fair to buy a ticket for an itinerary cheaper than a ticket for just a part of it? These observations make customers wonder why they pay higher prices for shorter flights. In this paper, we study the airlines’ revenue management systems and explain some of these pricing schemes in travel industries. We develop a simulator to study the decision making process of network revenue management and use a numerical study to explore these questions and address some explanations for them. We relate these observations to the revenue management measurements such as the bid price or the adjustment cost and show how the dynamic of the network get influenced by these measures that eventually results in unusual pricing. We explain how a zero or small bid price of a specific leg may cause the price of an itinerary be cheaper than one segment of it and that the small bid price is caused by low demand in comparison to the available capacity. We exhibit network revenue management system and show the above issues for a small network.     

Domestic codesharing practices in the US airline industry

This paper documents some stylized facts about domestic codesharing practices in the US airline industry. It is demonstrated that unlike international codesharing, the majority of domestic codeshare tickets do not combine the networks of two carriers. Rather, most codeshare tickets between major US carriers are virtual in nature, whereby one carrier sells tickets on flights operated entirely by another carrier. Moreover, we show that the price of these virtual tickets are, on average, less than those operated and marketed by a single carrier.     

铁路学生票分配优化模型与算法研究

通过分析铁路学生订票的特点,以及现有学生票发售模式存在的问题,提出在充分掌握学生票预订信息的条件下,根据各种优化目标和限制条件构建自动分配学生票的数学模型,运用启发式算法得到问题的满意解,实现车站学生票预订信息处理的整体最优.通过实例计算,说明模型的应用效果.     

铁路车站售票窗口排队系统模拟优化

运用排队模型理论对铁路车站售票窗口排队系统特征进行分析,建立了基于可接受等待时间的售票窗口数目优化模拟模型,给出模型的算法和流程。通过模拟计算结果与大连站实际数据对比分析,证明了模拟模型的有效性。优化结果表明,该模型可有效地为车站节约成本、增加旅客的满意度,适用于铁路车站售票窗口排队系统的动态管理。     

适应中国高速铁路客流特性的售票组织策略优化研究

售票组织是铁路客运日常管理工作的重要内容之一，其策略的制定必须与客流特性相适应。分析中国高速铁路客流与既有线及国外高铁客流的不同点，在此基础上，提出以席位销售优化控制为核心的售票组织策略。实践证明了所提出策略的有效性。     

The decline of the traditional travel agent model

This article analyzes the struggle between traditional travel agencies and airlines to gain control of the Spanish airline services market. Also analyzed is the strong emergence of a third player, online travel portals that act as online travel agencies. We use a multinomial logit model to study the influence of 27 socio-economic factors and trip attributes on passenger purchase channel choice. The results show that the profile of a passenger who has a greater likelihood of making his/her bookings online is that of a young person, a student or educated to a high level, a habitual traveler, booking a simple journey and using an LCC. The factors linked to an increased likelihood of making purchases by phone include: being male, middle-aged, on a business or short trip, and the passengers usually use a travel agency. Finally, passengers who are over 65 years of age, with a lower academic level, who use a travel agency and are going to make a more complicated journey, are more likely to purchase their tickets in-store.     

Assessing intercity multimodal choice behavior in a Touristy City: A factor analysis

This paper investigates influential factors in passengers' intercity multimodal choice behaviors in a touristy city. By collecting large individual-level data through a comprehensive field survey that was carried out at the major transportation hubs in Xi'an, China, we studied four travel modes of the surveyed travelers in this touristy city, including air, high-speed rail, traditional passenger train, and express bus. For factor analysis, 12 variables, including not only individual-related attributes but also ticketing methods and mental perceptions, were used as the independent factors after the correlation analysis and collinearity test. The regression relationships between the travel mode choice and the independent variables were studied using Bayesian multinomial logistic regression. The results indicate that those 12 factors have significant and various influences on passengers' mode choices. In particular, travel distance, fare rate, intercity travel time per hundred kilometers, quality of service, accessibility of transportation hubs, and ticketing methods have influential contributions for explaining the choice decision-makings. The findings demystify the effects of several unexplored factors in intercity multimodal travel choice behaviors and shed new light on formulating traffic management strategies for service providers and decision-makers in practice.     

Segmenting travellers based on day-to-day variability in work-related travel behaviour

Travel needs for commute and business trips are complex and choices are not made based on the characteristics of individual trips, but instead based on the needs over weeks and months. For example, the cost per trip of commuting by bus varies depending upon the frequency of travel, and the cost of a monthly subway pass depends upon the number of zones visited during that period. Intrapersonal variability, namely the variation in an individual's travel behaviour from day to day, therefore shapes our transport choices and should influence service provision. Changes in working patterns such as increases in part time working, self-employment and tele-commuting challenge the traditionally held assumptions that work activities are fixed in time and space, thus making intrapersonal variability increasingly relevant. This research uses a data-driven approach to segment workers based on their work-related travel behaviour, including frequency of travel and both spatial and time of day intrapersonal variability. The analysis uses survey and seven day travel diary data for over 110,000 people collected over a 19 year period in England. Four groups of workers were identified: infrequent, spatially variable, temporally variable and regular travellers. These groups do not align closely with self-reported working arrangements such as self-employment or part time working. The group of regular travellers has decreased in size between 1998 and 2016 but remains the largest group, containing just under 60% of workers in 2016. Both the infrequent and spatially variable groups have grown over the same period. For a small but growing group of workers, a seven day diary is insufficient to understand their work-related transport needs as little or no work travel is recorded. These findings have implications for the design of public transport ticketing, the design of mobility as a service packages and the appraisal of congestion charging schemes.     

基于排队论的车站验证检票口数量优化研究

基于实测数据拟合,验证车站实名制车票的旅客到达分布为泊松分布,运用排队理论建立车站验证检票口数量与客流需求相匹配的优化模型,根据旅客流量变化情况预估验证检票口合理数量。通过实例计算表明,基于排队论方法进行验证检票口数量优化配置,可以降低车站验证检票服务成本和旅客停留费用,提高经济性;提出的验证检票口数量优化方法和服务优化措施,可以协助车站合理设置验证检票口数量,提高服务质量。     

An analysis of trends in air travel behaviour using four related SP datasets collected between 2000 and 2005

A growing number of studies of air travel behaviour make use of data collected through stated choice surveys. However, while these studies all produce useful results in their own right, they are limited to the context of each specific study. We address this issue by using data from four related surveys carried out between 2000 and 2005. The analysis shows a level of consistency in some of the sensitivities, but also highlights trends such as reduced willingness-to-pay measures, potentially influenced by the growing number of low cost flight options, lack of service differentiation among the carriers, and increased use of online ticketing, which has led to greater fare transparency.     

Impact of e-business on air travel markets: Distribution of airline tickets in Korea

Early e-business activity in the airline industry was limited to the provision of flight schedule information to customers on websites. Recently, however, many airlines have expanded the capability of their web sites for selling tickets to make use of this cheap distribution channel. Here, we explore the impacts of airline e-business on the performance of air ticket distribution channels. Through a conjoint analysis, we suggest a model to estimate the change of market sales for each distribution channel. The impact of e-business on air travel markets and some implications on e-business strategy for both airlines and travel agents are also identified through an empirical survey.