Economic Benefit of Transportation Reservation System

在这项研究中，我们考虑了一个单一的运输服务市场，它的供应和消费是在一个时间点上同时进行的。有限数量的门票由一家垄断公司以固定价格提供。愿意消费服务的客户在预订时间时面临两种选择：1)现在购买门票，或者2)通过消费时间来推迟他/她的决定。在选择选项时，客户应该考虑两种不同类型的风险：1)需求侧风险和2)供应侧风险。一旦客户提前购买了门票，他/她就不可避免地面临着需求侧的风险，如果应该取消预订，他/她应该支付费用。客户可以通过在预约时间推迟决策来避免这些类型的风险。然而，通过保留决策，客户将面临供应方面的风险，即服务将在消费时机售罄。因此，顾客被迫在需求侧和供给侧风险之间进行权衡。本研究建立了个人预订行为模型和理性均衡模型来预测服务供给配给的服务市场中的预订数量。预订系统作为一种自我选择机制，通过个人预订行为自动选择对服务具有较大效用的用户。最终，将分配的优先顺序赋予效用相对较大的人，从而提高服务的分配效率。本研究还对预订系统的经济效益进行了分析。这表明，预订制度并不总是因为取消费用而改善社会福利。

In this research, we consider a single market of transportation services whose supply and consumption are simultaneously made at a point in time. The limited number of tickets is supplied by a monopolistic firm with the fixed price. A customer who is willing to consume a service is faced with two options at reserving timing : 1) to purchase a ticket now, or 2) to defer his/her decision by consuming timing. In choosing an option, the customer should take into account two different types of risks : 1) demand-side risks and 2) supply-side risks. Once the customer has purchased a ticket in advance, he/she is inevitably faced with demand-side risks that he/she should pay for fees if the reservation should be cancelled. The customer can avoid these types of risks by deferring decisions at reserving timing. However, by reserving decisions, the customers will be faced with supply-side risks that the services will be sold out at consuming timing. Thus, the customer is forced to resolve trade-offs between demand- and supply-side risks.This research has formulated an individual reservation behavior model and a rational equilibrium model to forecast the number of reservation in the service market where service supply is rationed. The reservation system functions as a self-selection mechanism, through which those who have relatively large utility toward the service are automatically selected through individual reservation behavior. Eventually, the priorities in allocation are attached to those who have relatively large utility and the efficiency in allocation of the service can be improved. This research also analyzed economic benefit of reservation system. It shows that reservation system does not always improve social welfare because of cancellation fee.