A dynamic ticket pricing strategy based on market competition for China-Laos Railway and an empirical study

China-Laos Railway is a flagship project linking China's Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI) with Laos's national strategy to “transform from a landlocked to a land-linked country”, and the successful operation of this project is considered an important measure of China's strength to go international in high-speed railway construction. Based on different pricing theories and the development of transportation along the China-Laos Railway, a double-layer planning model intended to maximize passenger revenue for the railway corporation and minimize the passengers’ generalized cost of travel under different passenger volumes is created in the present work, and sensitivity analysis is employed to solve the model. Meanwhile, an empirical study on the railway section from Vientiane to Luang Prabang in the China-Laos Railway is performed; it is found that the optimal fare rate is 0.5039 CNY/km, which is 12% higher than the current baseline rate and contributes to a 6.23% rise in the passenger revenue. The research will allow the administration of China-Laos Railway to decide the price of the railway tickets more scientifically and improve the railway's economic efficiency.