Raise/Lower Prices for Routes of X% Load Factor and above/below

[JJP]

Hi Sami,

When going through my routes, I thought it would be very convenient if I could manage route pricing by load factor.  

You could simply add 2 more boxes (one drop-down and one fill in the blank) to "Global route pricing - Update all routes."  One would be to type in the % Load Factor and the drop down box would be "and Lower" or "and Higher."  We could then globally increase all of the prices on our routes that are, say, 90% load factor and higher.  Or, we could lower the price on all routes that are, say, 60% and below.  

This would be super convenient!  Thanks.  

[Gaius Marius]

Actually, I really like this idea.  It would make it easier to bump down (or up) prices based on demand.

GM

[TommyC81]

Then why not take the step to introduce "Automatic pricing" altogether, as an option to manually pricing routes.

I find the current manual pricing system lacking in terms of no way to "research" the outcome of pricing apart from gradually change prices again and again and see how it affects profit.

"Automatic pricing" is in fact a feature of Airline Empires and is actually pretty handy without taking the tactical thinking out of the game. I believe it works by a separate calculation server that processes routes on regular intervals. And it tries to set a price to achieve maximum profit (although not as optimized as manually researching best prices).

This would give the following the effect; If you're alone on a route, the system will (let's say once a week) calculate supply vs demand taking into account things such as RI, CI, type of aircraft, service levels, departure time, num of connections and other factors that make passengers decide wether to fly or not. It will then set a price that tries to achieve maximum profit (or minimum loss, if a new route or tough competition), which would mean that initially a new route will be priced very low and then getting more expensive as RI picks up.

If you later on get competition, your LF will drop and the effect will be that your price will be lowered to try and compensate and still achieve maximum profit (or minimum loss).

The effect it has on a game in Airline Empires is that competition is quite different in terms of pricing levels and what type of plane to fly different routes. I've had to get rid of bigger planes several times as I've been unable to turn a profit whilst competition with smaller and more suitable planes have been able to turn a small profit. Overall I'd say competition and profit making is much more sensitive. It's hard to explain exactly the effects of "Automatic pricing", but from my experience trying Airline Empires, there's definitely room for it. And even though Airline Empires is inferior to Airwaysim in many ways, I'd suggest giving it a quick try for no other reason than to see the effects of the way "Automatic pricing" and competition works.

Interesting reading regarding "Distributing Demand Accross a Hub and Spoke Network in a Multiplayer Airline Simulation": http://www.airlineempires.net/content/view/48/49/

[Sami]

Yes well, revenue management (=ticket price optimization) is one of the biggest "new things" with airlines these days, with millions of ticket price optimizations done every day for even a small airline. So that's certainly something that could be looked.

For better price management tools itself, there is room for improvement and I think already a thread on this.

[Dasha]

It's very similar to what I proposed really...

[BD]

https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,50108.msg295093/topicseen.html#msg295093

Additional discussion on this topic, so readers of this one can cross-ref. 

[LemonButt]

sami--you stated in a duplicate thread that this is next on the list for development.  Can you provide details on how you plan on implementing this and what "levers" we can pull?  I have a degree in applied mathematics and have some pretty thought out ideas on how an AWS revenue management model could work, including variable pricing where buying the last seat on a plane costs more than the first seat, for example.  I've also done some work on my own and have some thoughts on pertinent data needed for decision-making when manually setting prices.

[dasherhalo]

Not sure if this is part of this exact discussion, or slightly different, but: the "reset all to default" button..

I don't hit it because you lose all your tweaks: most of which (for me) are price *increases*.

I'd like to see a "reset all prices below default to current default pricing".

[LemonButt]

I'd like to see a "reset all prices below default to current default pricing".

+1 on this...should be an easy one to implement.

[Sanabas]

Not sure if this is part of this exact discussion, or slightly different, but: the "reset all to default" button..

I don't hit it because you lose all your tweaks: most of which (for me) are price *increases*.

I'd like to see a "reset all prices below default to current default pricing".

You'd still need to keep retweaking though, as your over default routes get steadily less expensive relative to the rest.

I don't want semi-automated pricing, where you can raise everything with 90% loads by x%, etc, etc.

I do want the ability to manually tweak prices, and not lose those tweaks as the default changes. e.g. I set one route to default + 20%, another to default, another to default -10%. Then, 6 game months later, I hit a button that says 'reset all prices based on current default pricing, and my route set to +20 is now back to 20% above default, my route set to 0 is now back to the current default, etc, etc. Manual, not automated tweaking of prices up & down, but the ability to keep pace with the default price inflation without losing those tweaks.

[Sami]

Concept of default prices will be gone in the future, since it does not in any way promote the dynamism in the worlds. (price suggestions by your staff will be the replacing concept)

[JJP]

Thank you to all who contibuted some great ideas to this discussion!

Thanks for the update, Sami.  You mentioned that, "For better price management tools itself, there is room for improvement".  Any further update on this aspect?   

[JJP]

Duplicate: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,15692.0.html


Price management features are the next in line due for a large update

Quote from: sami on January 10, 2014, 12:42:22 PM
When this update has been completed the next goal is to improve the price management features (route pricing, user interface) during early spring 2014, and after that move full steam ahead towards other major changes that will make the simulation world more dynamic.

Hi Sami,

Are there more updates planned for price management, especially in regard to my opening post and the points made in the rest of this thread?

[TommyC81]

I've been out of this game for quite a while but decided to give the free trial a go. The first thing that struck me after acquiring 7 airplanes and opening up my routes is the extremely cumbersome interface to update the prices. This gave me a feeling of deja vu from my previous playing experience:

Then why not take the step to introduce "Automatic pricing" altogether, as an option to manually pricing routes.

I find the current manual pricing system lacking in terms of no way to "research" the outcome of pricing apart from gradually change prices again and again and see how it affects profit.

"Automatic pricing" is in fact a feature of Airline Empires and is actually pretty handy without taking the tactical thinking out of the game. I believe it works by a separate calculation server that processes routes on regular intervals. And it tries to set a price to achieve maximum profit (although not as optimized as manually researching best prices).

This would give the following the effect; If you're alone on a route, the system will (let's say once a week) calculate supply vs demand taking into account things such as RI, CI, type of aircraft, service levels, departure time, num of connections and other factors that make passengers decide wether to fly or not. It will then set a price that tries to achieve maximum profit (or minimum loss, if a new route or tough competition), which would mean that initially a new route will be priced very low and then getting more expensive as RI picks up.

If you later on get competition, your LF will drop and the effect will be that your price will be lowered to try and compensate and still achieve maximum profit (or minimum loss).

The effect it has on a game in Airline Empires is that competition is quite different in terms of pricing levels and what type of plane to fly different routes. I've had to get rid of bigger planes several times as I've been unable to turn a profit whilst competition with smaller and more suitable planes have been able to turn a small profit. Overall I'd say competition and profit making is much more sensitive. It's hard to explain exactly the effects of "Automatic pricing", but from my experience trying Airline Empires, there's definitely room for it. And even though Airline Empires is inferior to Airwaysim in many ways, I'd suggest giving it a quick try for no other reason than to see the effects of the way "Automatic pricing" and competition works.

Interesting reading regarding "Distributing Demand Accross a Hub and Spoke Network in a Multiplayer Airline Simulation": http://www.airlineempires.net/content/view/48/49/

I notice it's today over 7 years ago since I (along with others) proposed ways to adjust prices in a less cumbersome way (i.e. avoiding having to go into every individual route (and class) and adjust prices up and down depending on loadfactors/competition etc. etc.). Is there any plans at all to avail any further improvements with regards to price management? It becomes unmanageable when you start expanding the airlines, to the point that it impacts on the fun of the game.

Even the most basic option of simply manually doing an "Increase/decrease price by x % for all routes and classes with LF above/below y%" would help immensely. Beyond that, the sky is the limit. Thanks for reading!

[NovemberCharlie]

How does this fit in the priorities of game development at the moment?

[JumboShrimp]

How does this fit in the priorities of game development at the moment?

I think the priorities should be:
1. fixing the pricing page that is completely broken.  It does not tell you your current price, so any management from something unknown is a fools errand
2. introduce a formula based approach to pricing (as in 100% of default, that continues to be automatically inflation adjusted as is the Default price)
3. introduce more complex formulas and optimizations


With #1 and #2 broken, I don't think there is any point in thinking/talking about anything else...