Multi-Objective Pricing Optimization for a High-Speed Rail Network Under Competition

Multi-objective pricing of high-speed rail (HSR) passenger fares becomes a challenge when the HSR operator needs to deal with multiple conflicting objectives. Although many studies have tackled the challenge of calculating the optimal fares over railway networks, none of them focused on characterizing the trade-offs between multiple objectives under multi-modal competition. We formulate the multi-objective HSR fare optimization problem over a linear network by introducing the epsilon-constraint method within a bi-level programming model and develop an iterative algorithm to solve this model. This is the first HSR pricing study to use an epsilon-constraint methodology. We obtain two single-objective solutions and four multi-objective solutions and compare them on a variety of metrics. We also derive the Pareto frontier between the objectives of profit and passenger welfare to enable the operator to choose the best trade-off. Our results based on computational experiments with Beijing–Shanghai regional network provide several new insights. First, we find that small changes in fares can lead to a significant improvement in passenger welfare with no reduction in profitability under multi-objective optimization. Second, multi-objective optimization solutions show considerable improvements over the single-objective optimization solutions. Third, Pareto frontier enables decision-makers to make more informed decisions about choosing the best trade-offs. Overall, the explicit modeling of multiple objectives leads to better pricing solutions, which have the potential to guide pricing decisions for the HSR operators.