关键词: 空箱调运, 垄断, 双寡头, 非对称市场, 定价

Abstract: This paper studies how to price transportation service between two locations in monopoly and duopoly markets, respectively. Because equipment is necessary in facilitating the transportation service, the cost of empty equipment repositioning is inevitable when the realized demands along opposite directions are unbalanced. In case of a monopoly market, we derive the optimal pricing strategy and identify the range of unbalanced potential demands under which the firm achieves balanced realized demands. In case of a duopoly market, we assume that two competing firms have different potential demands along the same transportation direction. The Bertrand competition is analyzed and the optimal pricing strategy is derived. We find that profit may be higher when firms reposition some empty equipment, which implies it is unnecessary to achieve balanced realized demands on purpose. Furthermore, profit decreases with unit loaded equipment movement cost and competition intensity, and increases with unit empty equipment repositioning cost, price sensitivity and the asymmetric degree of two firms’ potential demands.

Key words: empty equipment repositioning, monopoly, duopoly, asymmetric market, pricing