An agent for optimizing airline ticket purchasing
نویسندگان
چکیده
Buying airline tickets is an ubiquitous task in which it is difficult for humans to minimize cost due to insufficient information. Even with historical data available for inspection (a recent addition to some travel reservation websites), it is difficult to assess how purchase timing translates into changes in expected cost. To address this problem, we introduce an agent which is able to optimize purchase timing on behalf of customers. We provide results that demonstrate the method can perform much closer to the optimal purchase policy than existing decision theoretic approaches for this domain.
منابع مشابه
AIRLINE STOCHASTIC CAPACITY ALLOCATION BY APPLYING REVENUE MANAGEMENT
To formulate a single-leg seat inventory control problem in an airline ticket sales system, the concept and techniques of revenue management are applied in this research. In this model, it is assumed the cabin capacity is stochastic and hence its exact size cannot be forecasted in advance, at the time of planning. There are two groups of early-reserving and late-purchasing customers demanding t...
متن کاملOptimal Airline Ticket Purchasing Using Automated User-Guided Feature Selection
Airline ticket purchase timing is a strategic problem that requires both historical data and domain knowledge to solve consistently. Even with some historical information (often a feature of modern travel reservation web sites), it is difficult for consumers to make true cost-minimizing decisions. To address this problem, we introduce an automated agent which is able to optimize purchase timing...
متن کاملDeveloping a Model Agent-based Airline Ticket Auctioning System
Large body of recent work has been devoted to multi-agent systems utilized in e-commerce scenarios. In particular, autonomous software agents participating in auctions have attracted a lot of attention. Interestingly, most of these studies involve purely virtual scenarios. In an initial attempt to fill this gap we discuss a model agent-based e-commerce system modified to serve as an airline tic...
متن کاملAn Expert Auditing System for Airline Passenger Tickets
The passenger revenue accounting (PRA) system has the monumental task of accounting for each of the 60,000 or so tickets that Northwest Airlines sells each day. One function of PRA is to audit each ticket to ensure that the travel agent or Northwest ticket station that sold the ticket collected the correct fare and claimed the correct commission. The fare and commission audit expert system perf...
متن کاملWait or buy? The strategic consumer: Pricing and profit implications
Using tools from operations research, airlines have, for many years, taken a strategic approach to pricing the seats available on a particular flight based on demand forecasts and information. The result of this approach is that the same seat on the same flight is often offered at different fares at different times. Setting of these prices using yield-management approaches is a major activity f...
متن کامل