Revenue management with two fare classes in synchromodal container transportation

The cargo fare class mix (CFCM) problem aims to find the optimal fare class mix for a given intermodal transportation network based on known client demands. It is based on a revenue management problem for aviation passengers, the fare class mix problem, but considering intermodal cargo transportation, two major differences apply. Firstly, the CFCM’s premise is that long-term commitments to customers must be provided, such that a customer has a guaranteed daily capacity. Secondly, cargo may be rescheduled or rerouted, as long as the customer’s delivery due date is met. Our goal is to balance revenue maximisation and capacity utilisation by optimally combining two delivery service levels. Therefore, the optimisation problem is to select fare class limits at a tactical level up to which transportation demand will be accepted on a daily basis at the operational level. Any accepted demand that does not fit on the available network capacity during operation, must be transported by truck at increased expenses for the network operator. In this paper, we propose a faster method than the previously proposed solution method for a single corridor network and we provide proofs for the optimality of the result. Using this, we extend the problem to an intermodal network of multiple corridors. We provide numerical results for different settings, in which we compare the baseline of individual corridor optimums with the result of using rerouting. Finally, we apply the methods in a case study for an intermodal transportation network in North-West Europe.