Study On Competitive Pricing Strategy And Train Operation Planning Of Railway Freight Transport

With the rapid development of road,waterway and air transport modes,railway freight transport is facing increasingly fierce market competition.In railway freight transport,freight price and train operation planning are the two key factors that affect the total revenue of railway freight business.In the freight marketing,freight price affects the customer's choice of transport modes.Whether it is reasonable or not determines the success or failure of railway freight business in the freight market competition.The train operation planning relates to the operating costs,transportation efficiency and customer service quality,and has a significant impact on the total revenue of railway freight business.Traditional cost-plus pricing method for railway freight transport and the train operation planning based on operating experience have not considered the various factors in the market competition environment and thus unable to meet the increasingly fierce competition in the freight transport market.It's imperative to set up a flexible and scientific freight pricing mechanism and train operation planning with the liberalization of pricing power of railway transport service and the further reform of railway marketization.In China's railway freight transport,the freight volume of general freight trains accounted for 97% in total railway freight volume.The transport of general freight trains is the main part of China's railway freight transport and also the emphasis of freight price reform.In view of the above problems,this article mainly studies the competitive pricing strategy and train operation planning of the transport of general freight trains.The core content mainly has the following two points:Firstly,taking the multiple OD freight demands of a single transport route and cycle as the background,we established a bi-level programming model of railway freight competitive pricing considering capability constraints on the basis of fully analyzing such factors as the service ability and transport cost of railway freight system,the freight price of major competitor road transport and the customer's choice of transport modes in order to maximize the profits of railway freight business and minimize the generalized transport cost of customers.In the example analysis,the optimal pricing strategy and the distribution of goods flow are given,and the feasibility of the model is verified.Secondly,we introduced the train operation planning in the context of multiple OD freight demands of a single freight route and cycle.In order to maximize the profits of railway freight business and minimize the generalized transport cost of customers,we established an integrated operation planning and competitive pricing bi-level programming model which fully considered a variety of factors such as the transport cost and service ability of railway freight system,the freight price of major competitor road transport,the customer's choice of transport modes and the occupancy relationship(train marshalling schemes)between OD freight demands(corresponding to wagon flow)and freight trains.In the example analysis,the optimal freight price,goods flow distribution scheme and train operation planning all have been given,and the feasibility of the model is verified.