Qingcheng Zeng

A game theory application of a cruise value chain – the case of China

Purpose Regardless of the facts showing a booming Chinese cruise market, cruise operations in China are very different from the current practices of the two major cruise markets – the US and the Mediterranean Sea. This study aims to quantify pricing strategies and possible incentive mechanisms of cruise operations in China. Design/methodology/approach Using optimization in economic-based game theory, the complexity of the pricing strategies and interaction and/or possible coordination within the cruise value-added chain can be captured. Findings The results show that a coordinative pricing strategy with Shapley profit redistribution within the value-added chain offers benefits to both cruise passengers and service suppliers. With two subsidy scenarios, one to the passenger and the other to the travel agent, a cooperative pricing strategy outperforms other strategies and successfully increases market shares and total revenue. Originality/value The advantages of coordination between participants in cruise value chain are quantified. Effective strategies for attracting players participating in cruise value chain are designed. This paper will provide market participants with strategies to enhance their decision-making processes.

Integrated optimization of pickup sequence and container rehandling based on partial truck arrival information

Abstract To reduce the rehandling of inbound containers given partial truck arrival information, a method of simultaneously optimizing the pickup sequence and the container rehandling strategy is proposed. A rehandling model that considers adjustments to the container pickup sequence within each group is developed to minimize the total number of rehandles. Five heuristic algorithms are proposed to solve the model, and their performances are analysed. Numerical experiments indicate that the proposed algorithms can effectively solve the addressed problem. In most cases, adjusting the pickup sequence within each group can greatly reduce the number of rehandles while not causing excessive delay for the external trucks. The proposed method provides an efficient tool for container terminals to reduce rehandling based on truck group arrival information.