A Revenue Management Approach for Network Capacity Allocation of an Intermodal Barge Transportation System

Abstract

We propose a revenue management (RM) model for the network capacity allocation problem of an intermodal barge transportation system. Accept/reject decisions are made based on a probabilistic mixed integer optimization model maximizing the expected revenue of the carrier over a given time horizon. Probability distribution functions are used to characterize future potential demands. The simulated booking system solves, using a commercial software, the capacity allocation problem for each new transportation request. A conventional model for dynamic capacity allocation considering only the available network capacity and the delivery time constraints is used as alternative when analyzing the results of the proposed model.