Impact analysis of HSR fare discount strategy on HSR share in Beijing-Shanghai transportation corridor

High-speed Rail (HSR) fare discount strategy is expected as an efficient way to adjust HSR share in intercity transport market based on discounted fare and return refund. Usually, return refund decreases with the decrease in discounted fare and return refund will weaken the impacts of discounted fare on HSR share. In this paper, an integration of semi-compensatory intercity mode choice model and latent class model is employed to evaluate the impacts, while the latter represents traveler's taste heterogeneity and the former combines the consideration choice set generation and mode choice making stages. According to the estimations for Beijing-Shanghai transportation corridor, discounted fares dominate choice results relative to return refunds, and HSR share can be adjusted slightly under the fixed ticket fare by changing return refund rate. Meanwhile, given HSR share and probability of returning tickets, the optimal HSR fare discount strategy can be found to gain more ticket sales revenues.