Container Liner Shipping Enterprise Applications, Revenue Management And A Number Of Issues

This dissertation conducts a study on the issues relating to revenue management and the application thereof in container lines.Revenue management is a new set of technology and idea of management developing on the basis of the traditional countermeasure theory of the management of supplying and demanding. The currently used name, revenue management, was firstly employed by American airlines in 1980s' with purpose of surviving the impetuous market competition. Many relevant concepts and theories have been studied for a long time, however, this manner of management had not been introduced into practice until the airlines began to combine price control with inventory control of scheduled flights to maximize their profit in late 1970s, in line with the increasingly impetuous market competition. With the speedy development of revenue management in air industry, it has been widely applied in hotel management, carriage of goods, auto renting and traveling etc., and has begun to expand to communication, financing, electronic power providing and manufacturing and other relative fields. Along with the expansion of its application scope, the study on the theory keeps consummating.Container lines, set up to be engaged in the regular carriage of containerized cargo by sea, are special enterprises with sharp service characteristic. They provide invisible service, the movement of containerized cargo, instead of physical products. Comparing with other industries, their operational process boasts very notable characteristics, such as, the fixed cost of service is high while the marginal cost is low; the service could be presold while could not be stored; the service capability is relatively fixed; the market competition is impetuous and instable etc., which are however similar to those of passenger transportation by air. Although revenue management has not been carried on in container lines, the author, considering from the respect of either the microenvironment or the macro environment, is convinced that it is not only possible but also necessary to implement the method of management therein.This dissertation is divided into eight chapters to research and discuss the development and application of revenue management, especially in container lines.Chapter One serves as a general introduction to the fundamental conception, basic model and the background and conditions of the development of revenue management and review the great success it has achieved in the field of passenger transport by air. Chapter Two establishes the foundation of the reasoning of the dissertation based on the analyses of the possibility and necessity of implementation of revenue management in container lines. Chapter Three focuses on the presale and pricing of slots and brings forward the assumption of different pricing on the basis of slot presale. Chapter Four studies the issue of slot oversale and makes a brief simulation of oversale tactics under different circumstances by MATLAB programs. Chapter Five and Chapter Six discuss respectively the management of group and the dissymmetry of information in revenue management. Chapter Seven gives a general investigation on the other important issues of revenue management. And in Chapter Eight, the last chapter, the author attempts to put forward a series of suggestion on how to implement revenue management in container lines. And finally, it is drawn as the conclusion that scientific and rational application and promotion of revenue management in container lines will surely make this industry undergo a revolutionary reform and that the pioneers, who implement revenue management scientifically and systematically before most container lines do so, are certain to benefit from the fruits born therethrough.Yin Ming (Communications &Transport Planning & Management)Directed by Professor Wang Xuefeng...