Advance purchase behaviors of air passengers: A continuous logit model

Modeling the advance purchase behaviors of air passengers is essential when airlines develop revenue management strategies. Therefore, this study empirically investigates advance purchase behaviors based on the air ticket transaction data by using a continuous logit model. The estimation results show that advance purchase behaviors are significantly affected by price, price uncertainty, time of day (morning, afternoon and evening flight), days of week (flight on Friday), months of year (peak or off-peak seasons), and consecutive holiday. Accordingly, different pricing strategies should be used for different flights to maximize revenue.     

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.     

The market potential of all-premium class services on medium haul leisure routes from Germany

In this paper, we analyse the potential demand for premium products on medium haul leisure routes, which is currently not met by appropriate supply. More precisely, we discuss if all-premium class services targeting the wealthy tourist could be viable on such routes. In a case study approach, we estimate potential costs, average ticket prices and demand for hypothetical all-premium class operations between Germany and Spanish islands Majorca, Gran Canaria and Tenerife.     

Robust accessibility: Measuring accessibility based on travelers' heterogeneous strategies for managing travel time uncertainty

Uncertainties in travel times due to traffic congestion and delay are risks for drivers and public transit users. To avoid undesired consequences such as losing jobs or missing medical appointments, people can manage the risks of missing on-time arrivals to destinations using different strategies, including leaving earlier to create a safety margin and choosing routes that have more reliable rather than fastest travel times. This research develops a general analytical framework for measuring accessibility considering automobile or public transit travelers' heterogeneous strategies for dealing with travel time uncertainty. To represent different safety margin plans, we use effective travel time (expected time + safety margin), given specified on-time arrival probabilities. Heterogeneity in routing strategy is addressed using different Pareto-optimal routes with two main criteria: faster travel time vs. higher reliability. Based on various safety margin and routing strategy combinations, we examine how accessibility changes under varying safety margin plans and routing strategies. Also, we define and measure robust accessibility: geographic regions that are accessible regardless of the safety margin planning and routing strategy. Robust accessibility can provide a conservative and reasonable view of accessibility under travel time uncertainty. To demonstrate the applicability of the methods, we carry out an empirical study on measuring the impacts of new transit service on healthcare accessibility in a deprived neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, USA.     

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.     

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.     

The welfare effects of the allocation of airlines to different terminals

Many airports around the world have recently built, rebuilt or are in the process of constructing new terminals. Incumbent airlines and new entrants must be allocated to the new and old facilities. When spaces at airport terminals are directly allocated, the allocation should be done by taking into account the implications for airlines’ competition and social welfare, given the airlines’ network configuration. We use a theoretical model in which two airlines compete in prices with differentiated products for a given network structure. The model shows that, in general, if airlines are allocated to different terminals, the level of competition is reduced, the ticket prices are higher and the consumer surplus and social welfare are lower. Only in some routes, and under certain conditions on the market size, ticket prices may be lower.     

Route optimization for energy efficient airport shuttle operations – A case study from Dallas Fort worth International Airport

The objective of this research is to reduce energy consumption from intra airport shuttle operations by optimizing routes and schedules, without compromising on passenger travel experience. To achieve this objective, we propose an optimization model that generates optimal airport shuttle routes for a given set of constraints and a discrete-event simulator that evaluates the optimal shuttle routes in a stochastic environment to understand the tradeoffs between the amount of time passengers wait for shuttles, and shuttle energy consumption. The proposed optimization model and stochastic simulation are tested using shuttle route data provided by the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. Results indicate that optimized routes can lead to a 20% energy reduction in shuttle operations with a modest 2-min increase in average shuttle wait times. The optimization model and simulator presented here are designed to be generalizable and can be adapted to optimize shuttle operations at any major airport.     

Triggering competition in the Spanish airline market: The role of airport capacity and low-cost carriers

We analyze the influence of increases in airport capacity and the entry of low-cost carriers on airline competition. We use parametric and non-parametric techniques to analyze a sample of Spanish routes. We find that capacity increases in large airports produce more competitive airline conduct only in routes departing from non-hub airports. Also, we find that the natural monopoly threshold decreases with time. Finally, low-cost carriers have a moderate but still significant effect on prices and increase alternatives even in low-density routes.     

Low cost carriers in Southeast Asia: How does ticket price change the way passengers make their airline selection?

The purpose of this paper is to develop an extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model to examine how Southeast Asian passengers' internal behavioral factors and external stimuli affect their buying intention and actual purchase of Low-Cost Carrier (LCC) tickets. In addition, how ticket price changes the behaviors of those factors in that model is also examined. A survey of 781 passengers was conducted in two major airports in Thailand to test the hypotheses. The results indicate the important role of passengers' attitudes, social norms, and perceived behavioral control in LCC passenger's buying behavior. More importantly, the presence of the ticket price does change how other factors predict the behavioral intention and actual use of LCCs in Southeast Asia.     

A GIS-based toolkit for route choice analysis

This paper develops and applies the route choice analysis (RCA) toolkit. This GIS-based toolkit generates a suite of over 40 variables describing route characteristics such as distance, travel time, speed statistics, number of intersections, number of turns, number of stop signs/stop lights, and a measure of route circuity, to name a few. The input to the toolkit is one or more routes, which can be obtained from global positioning system (GPS) data or some other means (e.g., shortest path). While the toolkit is designed to support route choice modeling by generating variables that have been tested in previous modeling efforts, we demonstrate its utility by testing the hypothesis that workers choose routes to minimize either travel time or distance between home and work. A GPS-enhanced data set of 237 observed routes for home-to-work trips collected for auto drivers in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada is used in our analysis. We find that the null hypothesis is refuted - that is, a comparison of observed routes to their shortest-path alternatives based on time and distance via inferential statistics indicates that observed routes are significantly longer compared to their alternatives. This finding suggests that workers may choose routes based on other route attributes. The attributes generated by the RCA toolkit for observed, shortest time, and shortest distance routes are compared and significant differences are noted.     

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.     

Impacts of high speed rail on railroad network accessibility in China

High speed rail (HSR) is changing the overall travel accessibility of cities in China. There have been a number of studies of high speed rail in China. However, detailed spatiotemporal accessibility pattern of cities affected by the operation of high speed rail in China has not been reported. This study takes a timetable-based accessibility evaluation approach to analyze the changes in travel time, travel cost, and distance accessibility for each of the four main stages of HSR development in China: no HSR service in Stage 1 before August 2008, several HSR lines in Stage 2 between August 2008 and July 2011, reduced operating speed of HSR trains in Stage 3 between August 2011 and November 2012, and addition of new HSR lines and reduction of ticket fares in Stage 4 between December 2012 and January 2013. In addition to the “corridor effect” and the “center-diffusion” pattern, this paper investigates the impacts of HSR on changes in in-vehicle travel time and out-of-vehicle travel time with respect to the policy changes that reduced the operating speed of HSR trains, rearranged the train timetable, and lowered the ticket fare on HSR trains. The analysis results indicate the spatiotemporal pattern of Chinese cities affected by these policy changes. This study is useful for assessing HSR impacts on the accessibility of various cities across China as well as serving as a decision-making support to policies related to adjustments of HSR operation and planning of future HSR routes by considering the existing HSR and non-HSR railway lines.     

Homogeneous service with heterogeneous products: Relationships among airline ticket fares and purchase fences

A fare table derived from homogeneous service is essential for revenue management applications in the airline industry. Restrictions or so-called fences are usually regarded as a useful tool to differentiate homogeneous seat service. Nevertheless, the relationships among fares and fences are not yet clear. This study aims to investigate passengers’ preferences on the choice of ticket alternatives describing by fares and fences and using Taiwan domestic air travel as an example. Regarding the attributes that an airline ticket may be attached such as departure time, booking time, ticket validity, changing fee, refund and fare, stated preference questionnaires are developed with multiple hypothetical scenarios for respondents to select in the experiment. 398 valid samples are collected for the logit model analysis. With the use of mixed logit model to accommodate both passengers’ heterogeneity and also the issue of relevant alternatives in the experiment, the results show statistical significance of all applied attributes with correct signs. In addition, passengers possess different attitudes on the fence of booking time, ticket validity, changing fee, and fare. Willingness-to-pay of each fence is further calculated to ultimately generate a fare table based on the combination of fences for practice use.     

基于模态识别的高速铁路列车票额预分优化研究

票额预分是高速铁路列车票额现代化管理的重要技术手段,为客运组织实现挖潜提效、精细化管理起到关键作用,但长期存在过度裂解或过度保护的问题,导致高速铁路列车区段运输能力存在虚糜现象。通过分析高速铁路列车票额预分现状,从接续预分、模态内聚预分和复合模态预分顺序优化等方面,构建基于客流模态识别的高速铁路列车票额预分优化模型,以北京西—成都东的G571次高速铁路列车票额预分为例,研究结果表明基于模态识别的高速铁路列车票额预分能够更好地实现存量票额在始发站和沿途站的科学预分,有效提升高速铁路列车客座率和收入水平。     

Exploring the effectiveness of bus rapid transit a prototype agent-based model of commuting behavior

The introduction of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), typically involving the use of exclusive bus lanes and related bus priority measures, is increasingly advocated as a flexible and cost-effective way of improving the attractiveness of public transit in congested urban areas by reducing travel times and variability. These schemes typically involve the reallocation of road space for exclusive use by buses, presenting commuters with potentially competing incentives: buses on BRT routes can run faster and more efficiently than buses running in general traffic, potentially attracting commuters to public transit and reducing congestion through modal shift from cars. However, a secondary impact may also exist; remaining car users may be presented with less congested road space, improving their journey times and simultaneously acting as an incentive for some bus-users to revert to the car. To investigate the potential for these primary and secondary impacts, we develop a prototype agent-based model to investigate the nature of these interactions and how they play out into system-wide patterns of modal share and travel times. The model allows us to test the effects of multiple assumptions about the behaviors of individual agents as they respond to different incentives introduced by BRT policy changes, such as the implementation of exclusive bus lanes, increased bus frequency, pre-boarding ticket machines and express stops, separately and together. We find that, under our assumptions, these policies can result in significant improvements in terms of individual journey times, modal shift, and length of rush hour. We see that the addition of an exclusive bus lane results in significant improvements for both car users and bus riders. Informed with appropriate empirical data relating to the behavior of individual agents, the geography and the specific policy interventions, the model has the potential to aid policymakers in examining the effectiveness of different BRT schemes, applied to broader environments.     

A latent class choice based model system for railway optimal pricing and seat allocation

In this paper, discrete choice methods in the form of multinomial logit and latent class models are proposed to explain ticket purchase timing of passenger railway. The choice model and demand functions are incorporated into a revenue optimization problem which jointly considers pricing and seat allocation. The framework provides insightful policy implications in term of fare and capacity distribution derived from actual passenger behavior. It shows that accepting short-haul demand provides greater revenue than long-haul demand using the same capacity. Revenue improvement ranges from 16.24% to 24.96% in multinomial logit models and from 13.82% to 21.39% in latent class models respectively.     

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.     

Searching for the sweet spot: The determinants of direct services from Canadian airports

In markets for scheduled passenger travel services, demand may be not independent of supply. On airline routes the speed, convenience and frequency of services affect demand along with price and other economic factors. This generates the possibility of multiple equilibria. For 185 domestic Canada and trans-border city-pair routes, of which 101 currently lack non-stop service, we find that twelve of the latter (all trans-border routes) have a “sweet spot” – although current passenger numbers do not justify non-stop service, were this to be introduced, it would turn out to be economically justified by the boost in the attractiveness of the route.     

Best buy: what does it mean in corporate travel?

Corporate travel departments manage travel costs prescribing best buy decisions. With reference to flights, the crucial choice concerns the fare. As the difference in price can be great, it might seem convenient to always purchase the cheapest ticket, neglecting that the more expensive a fare, the lower the cost of change or cancellation. We define “best buy” minimizing the expected global cost of flights, whence estimating the probability distribution of travellers’ behaviour is necessary. Variables useful to this aim are detected. This statistical approach can improve the efficiency of corporate policies, leading to diversified purchasing strategies.