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

摘要： 考虑空箱调运成本,本文对垄断和双寡头市场分别研究运输企业在两条相向路径上的定价问题。对于垄断市场,建立了运输企业最优定价策略,并刻画出无空箱调运的潜在需求不平衡区间。对于双寡头市场,考虑同一路径上不同企业潜在运输需求不等的现实情境,求解了非对称企业的伯川德纳什均衡,给出最优定价策略。研究发现,无空箱调运并不意味着较高利润,运输企业没有必要刻意消除空箱调运现象。另外,增加单位载货运输成本和竞争强度会降低企业利润,而提升单位空箱重置成本、价格敏感度和市场不对称程度都会增大企业利润。

关键词: 空箱调运, 垄断, 双寡头, 非对称市场, 定价