Railroad Fare Modeling

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Situation

A European railroad provides transportation and digital ticketing services for a large portion of the continent. The business unit manually sets prices based on historical purchases.

Problem

Fare pricing was unresponsive to consumer shifts in demand. The business unit was not able to react to the shifts quickly enough, which meant a loss in profitability due to setting prices too high (resulting in fewer sales) or too low (resulting in loss of revenue). The railroad needed to monitor its seat reservation activity in order to create a fare model reflecting the usage of the rail line.

Fare modeling was a computationally intensive application running on a Solaris system with an Oracle database.

Solution

Create a ticketing and seat reservation application on an HPE NonStop Server.
Use HPE Shadowbase Data and Application Integration to send reservation information to an Oracle database on a Solaris server that runs a fare/price modeling application.
Return the fare/price modeling information back to the NonStop Server for real-time updates so pricing is set for optimum profits.

Figure 1 — Manual Railroad Fare Modeling

Figure 2 — Automated Railroad Fare Modeling with Shadowbase Bi-directional Replication for Heterogeneous Data and Application Integration

In Figure 2, tickets are purchased based upon seat availability using an application on the NonStop Server. HPE Shadowbase heterogeneous bi-directional replication sends the reservation information to the Fare Model application on the Oracle Solaris server, which processes and analyzes supply and demand, calculating optimal pricing information. Then, the fare modeling application uses HPE Shadowbase software to return the updated pricing information to the NonStop Server, which updates ticket availability and pricing, and logs consumer demand so that the company can run further analysis to attain price equilibrium for optimum profits.

Outcomes

Processes online ticketing transactions quickly with an HPE NonStop Server
Synchronizes the HPE NonStop ticket sales information with the Oracle Solaris fare modeling application in real-time
Sets prices for remaining tickets automatically, in real-time based upon demand
Records this information for pricing future fares
Removes guesswork from pricing process: achieves optimal pricing to maximizes profits

HPE Shadowbase Products of Interest

HPE NonStop Shadowbase Basic Data Integration Software (BE443AC/QSA51V6)
HPE NonStop Shadowbase Advanced Data Integration LTU (BE444AL/QSA52V6)
HPE NonStop Shadowbase Essential Software (BE446AC/QSA54V6)
HPE Shadowbase Basic Application Software 1-8 core or 9+ core (WSA51V6T1/T2)
HPE Shadowbase Advanced Application Software LTU 1-8 core or 9+ core (WSA52V6T1/T2)