A Column Generation Algorithm for Choice-Based Network Revenue Management

25 Pages Posted: 16 Nov 2008

Date Written: October 2008

Abstract

In the last few years, there has been a trend to enrich traditional revenue management models built upon the independent demand paradigm by accounting for customer choice behavior. This extension involves both modeling and computational challenges.One way to describe choice behavior is to assume that each customer belongs to a segment, which is characterized by a consideration set, i.e., a subset of the products provided by the firm that a customer views as options. Customers choose a particular product according to a multinomial-logit criterion, a model widely used in the marketing literature.In this paper, we consider the choice-based, deterministic, linear programming model (CDLP) of Gallego et al. [6], and the follow-up dynamic programming (DP) decomposition heuristic of van Ryzin and Liu [16], and focus on the more general version of these models, where customers belong to overlapping segments. To solve the CDLP for real-size networks, we need to develop a column generation algorithm. We prove that the associated column generation subproblem is indeed NP-Complete, and propose a simple, greedy heuristic to overcome the complexity of an exact algorithm. Our computational results show that the heuristic is quite effective, and that the overall approach has good practical potential and leads to high quality solutions.

Keywords: choice behavior, multinomial logit, capacity control, hyperbolic programming, integer programming

Suggested Citation

Bront, Juan Jose Miranda, A Column Generation Algorithm for Choice-Based Network Revenue Management (October 2008). NYU Working Paper No. OM-2007-06, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1301943

Juan Jose Miranda Bront (Contact Author)

affiliation not provided to SSRN

No Address Available

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