Revenue management for container liner shipping services: Critical review and future research directions

The purpose of revenue management (RM) is to maximize revenue growth for a company by optimizing product/service availability and prices based on micro-level forecasting of customer behavior. Seat/cargo capacity control and air ticket/cargo pricing are two primary RM research topics that have yielded fruitful models and solution methods for air transportation, which have been used by airlines for around 50 years. However, the RM studies for container liner shipping services and their application are scant although the operations of airlines and container shipping lines are quite similar. We therefore introduce the fundamental RM models developed for air transportation, namely, capacity control and pricing models. Based on these models, we proceed to critically review the RM studies for container liner shipping services. Finally, we identify valuable future research directions in container shipping RM.