TRSM Research Seminar by Dr. Hossein Zolfagharinia

Title: Pricing of maritime transportation services under demand uncertainty

Decsripton: This study considers a shipping firm that provides transportation services between two ports in both directions. Each direction has its own uncertain potential demand that can be affected by the firm's prices and quality of service. To maximize the firm's profit, we propose a mathematical model to determine the price and quality of the service considering empty container repositioning and demand uncertainty. Due to the uncertain demand, we analyze different states of demand realization and discuss optimal policies for each state. These policies are then analyzed to develop a robust pricing and quality setting strategy. In addition, to implement the developed strategy, we propose an algorithm to convert the obtained results into a practical procedure that the shipping firm can utilize. Lastly, we investigate the impact of several factors on the firm's profit and demonstrate that the firm's profit and the imposed regret depend on both internal and external factors such as the potential demands, price sensitivity, empty and loaded movement cost, and uncertainty control parameter.

Presenter Bio: Dr. Hossein Zolfagharinia is an Associate Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management in the Global Management Studies department. He is the co-editor of a book, and the author of a book chapter and over 15 top-tier refereed articles in A and A* rated journals, based on the ABDC list. These journals include: European Journal of Operational Research, Omega, Transportation Research: Part B, Part D, and Part E, International Journal of Production Economics, Journal of Cleaner Production, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Computers & Operations Research, and Operations Research for Health Care.

Dr. Zolfagharinia is the recipient of the Dean's Scholarly, Research, and Creative Activity Award in 2017, the Ted Rogers School of Management (TRSM) Research Recognition Awards in 2018 & 2020, the Best Paper Award of the Production and Operations Management Division at the 2019 Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC), and several TRSM Outstanding Research Recognition Funding Awards. In addition, he has received over $500,000 in internal and external research grants from a variety of funding agencies, including: NSERC Discovery Grant, SSHRC Insight Development Grant, NSERC Engage Grant, Federal Economic Development Agency Grant for Southern Ontario, and Ontario Centres of Excellence Grant.