Dynamic Pricing Research for Container Terminal Handling Charges Based on Demand Forecast

Abstract

A dynamic pricing model was established based on forecasting the demand for container handling of a specific shipping company to maximize terminal profits to solve terminal handling charges under the changing market environment. It assumes that container handling demand depends on the price and the unknown parameters in the demand model. The maximum quasi-likelihood estimation(MQLE) method is used to estimate the unknown parameters. Then an adaptive dynamic pricing policy algorithm is proposed. At the beginning of each period, through dynamic pricing, determining the optimal price relative to the estimation value of the current parameter and attach a constraint of differential price decision. Meanwhile, the accuracy of demand estimation and the optimality of price decisions are balanced. Finally, a case study is given based on the real data of Shanghai port. The results show that this pricing policy can make the handling price converge to the stable price and significantly increase this shipping company's handling profit compared with the original "contractual pricing" mechanism.