Passenger Origin-Destination Simulator (PODS) Consortium

The Passenger Origin-Destination Simulator (PODS), first developed by Boeing in the early 1990s, has since been modified and expanded by MIT to realistically simulate the passenger booking and choice process in competitive airline markets. PODS simulates the decisions of individual business and leisure passengers in terms of their choice of airline flight and fare options, given two or more competitors offering different route networks, aircraft capacities, departure schedules, and multiple fare levels (each with associated restrictions) in hypothetical network environments.

The PODS Consortium at MIT is funded by airline members that in 2012 include Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Delta, KLM/Air France, Lufthansa/Swiss, SAS and United. With guidance from the members, PODS is used by MIT graduate students to test the revenue impacts of existing and new models for demand forecasting and seat availability optimization in airline revenue management systems. Examples of recent and current PODS research projects and Master’s thesis topics include:

(*) Optimization of alliance network revenues through coordination of partner seat inventory controls
(*) Demand forecasting and optimization for “fare family” fare structures being introduced by airlines
(*) Estimation of passenger willingness to pay and unconstraining of historical booking data for RM forecasting
()* Joint optimization of multiple aircraft cabins to account for passenger choice and use of shared seat inventories