The Ferry Plus integral revenue management (RM) application is a result of our many years of experience in providing software to ferry operators worldwide. Here we describe a simple ‘nested’ RM configuration and show its integration with ticket pricing and the reservation process.
Although there are complex algorithms at the heart of the ferry+ RM, using RM is intuitive.
The basis of the application is structured on what we call yield classes. Our example shows three yield classes, high, medium and low (Figure 1). While there is no limit to the number of yield classes, in operation, a small number will likely suffice. It should also be noted that the yield classes reside in what we call a ‘market’ and a traffic type.
The use of the markets allows RM to be discrete for each market. For example, a ferry operator may take bookings from multiple geographical areas and within each area, accept bookings from several types of traffic (e.g. tourist, group and freight). Of course, RM works equally well across a single market.
Ticket types are also associated with the yield classes. Ticket types are simply an umbrella categorisation for ensuring that specific tickets sold are taken from the correct yield class. Figure 1 shows that any flexible ticket sold is from the high yield class while all saver tickets and all discounted tickets sold are from the medium and low yield classes respectively. Ticket type names, for example, ‘All saver tickets’ in Figure 1, are used to group tickets that generate similar revenue to an appropriate yield class.
Examples of tickets grouped to a yield class are shown in Figure 2.When making a reservation, ferry+ checks both physical and yield class space
The high level example in Figure 1 shows that ticket prices can then be varied across tickets and departures. Figure 2 drills down to show a more detailed explanation for the medium yield class for those tickets sold as the ticket type Saver. The example shows four specific tickets designated as being in the Saver ticket type, which in turn is selling from the medium yield class. Each of the four tickets will have a set of ticket rules and conditions applying to it covering its validity and the basis on which it can be sold.
When making a reservation, ferry+ checks both physical and yield space, offering applicable tickets where both categories of space are available. The example (Figure 2) shows clearly that in addition to ensuring the saver fares come out of the medium yield class, that they also have their own price which can vary across departure times.
This is a brief introduction to Ferry Plus RM, please contact us for more information and a practical demonstration.