What is the real value of a visitor's berth? An open market proposal

shmoo

shmoo

Well-Known Member
Joined
23 May 2005
Messages
2,136
Location
West Cornwall
Visit site
Another current thread is discussing changes at Yarmouth. It throws up the question "What is the right price for a berth?" One of my work tasks is to suggest projects for students. Here is a suggestion.

The way to find the "right" price for a visitors berth is through an open efficient market. The suggestion is a iPhone applet, back-ended by a bid management server, that allows berths to be bid for in real time, up until some convenient closing time (to allow for some certainty that one will have a berth) If groups of marina/harbours in an area all subscribed sailors could make an informed choice. The downside (for sailors) is that popular weekends would be dear, but the upside is the possibility of a berth for a pound or two at quiet times.

Something like:

bidding.JPG
 
Last edited:
Nice interface mock-up, did you use a software package to sketch it?

Re. the project proposal... I think the scope of the project is too large and might end up distracting students from their essential academic pursuit.
 
Yes, there are all sorts of sophisticated systems for real life demand/supply led pricing of time limited goods such as berths, hotel rooms and airline seats. In fact I examined a Doctorate that explored the practical application of such systems for a major airline. The reality is that they are too complex and assume, for example there is perfect information available to both buyer and seller which would only happen in your scenario if every buyer had access to an iPhone and every seller subscribed.

In reality, airlines, ferry companies and the like use rules of thumb, for example setting bands for price levels. So, for example Easyjet will set a rule such as "first 25 seats are X and 26-50 are Y". So if you enquire for 1 seat and it is the 25th, you will be quoted X, but if you enquire for 2 seats you will be quoted Y for both because the system will reject a booking for 2! There is usually a manual override so that rules can be changed if market conditions change - for example cheap seats sell very quickly - signal to perhaps increase prices generally for that flight/period, but it is not automatic.

Not sure demand is varaible at short notice - Ah I see there are cheap berhs in Yarmouth tonight - less go there! and supply is fixed. A banding system may work, but unlikely to encourage people to visit Yarmouth in the middle of winter because berths are only, say £2.50 a night!
 
Tranona said:
Yes, there are all sorts of sophisticated systems for real life demand/supply led pricing of time limited goods such as berths, hotel rooms and airline seats. In fact I examined a Doctorate that explored the practical application of such systems for a major airline. The reality is that they are too complex and assume, for example there is perfect information available to both buyer and seller which would only happen in your scenario if every buyer had access to an iPhone and every seller subscribed.

In reality, airlines, ferry companies and the like use rules of thumb, for example setting bands for price levels. So, for example Easyjet will set a rule such as "first 25 seats are X and 26-50 are Y". So if you enquire for 1 seat and it is the 25th, you will be quoted X, but if you enquire for 2 seats you will be quoted Y for both because the system will reject a booking for 2! There is usually a manual override so that rules can be changed if market conditions change - for example cheap seats sell very quickly - signal to perhaps increase prices generally for that flight/period, but it is not automatic.

Not sure demand is varaible at short notice - Ah I see there are cheap berhs in Yarmouth tonight - less go there! and supply is fixed. A banding system may work, but unlikely to encourage people to visit Yarmouth in the middle of winter because berths are only, say £2.50 a night!
Click to expand...

Why not go the whole way and put them on e-bay

Sorry guys I go sailing to relax, couldnt be doing with an auction to know if I got a berth.
 
I can see the attraction for the Marina and not impossible that in 5 years time becomes industry standard and therefore works because of few alternatives............but I would have no interest in participating as I want transparent and certain pricing......albeit I am happy to risk no berth! But I don't want to risk going somewhere to find that a berth will cost £127.50, especially if I suspect this is the Marina ramping up the price - bad weather / trying it on.
 
Why is he bidding for a berth before he has seen the berths available?

Well OK just being a clever dick. Sorry!

However it may be an interesting project for your students but it would very definitely not be a commercial proposition. Not only dont some people have 3g access on board but a fair number dont carry mobile phones. It's a kiddie system.
 
Last edited:
wotayottie said:
Why is he bidding for a berth before he has seen the berths available?

Well OK just being a clever dick. Sorry!

However it may be an interesting project for your students but it would very definitely not be a commercial proposition. Not only dont some people have 3g access on board but a fair number dont carry mobile phones. It's a kiddie system.
Click to expand...

You are, of course, quite right on all counts. It is not a "system" at all and the only reason I put it on a phone was because I didn't have a UI template for a plotter handy. I would see real system running on one of the lesser used marine VHF frequencies that will certainly get handed back to Ofcom when they start proper spectrum charging. Using contention protocols something like AIS, marinas (or a berth broker) could broadcast current bid/offers and boats within range could bid.

The display would be an option on the plotter.

No reason not to have an iPhone or even an old fashioned web Internet interface for folks who do their planning at work!
 
wotayottie said:
....it would very definitely not be a commercial proposition. Not only dont some people have 3g access on board but a fair number dont carry mobile phones. It's a kiddie system.
Click to expand...
Unless of course those with mobile phones were allowed first choice and those without just had to turn up and take pot luck?

I can see pre booking/pre payment for berths becoming the norm in busy places such as the Solent in the next few years. If you don't phone ahead, you won't get a berth.

It's all very well saying you won't play but we already do it for lots of other forms of travel and accommodation.
 
Yet another good reason for me to continue my one boat boycot of marinas. I was taken into one against my will by a guest helmsman (from the MoBo forum) last year & it simply served to confirm my predjudice.
 
Hmm tricky... I don't think the visitor berth market could be efficient enough for it to work:

What if you arrive way before the auction closes, and you get your visitor berth. Do you get it for the latest bid at the auction, or do you have to bid to win if you want to stay put?

Having arrived at Lymington, that's where you plan to stay, right? Would you seriously turn round and go to Yarmouth to save £10.

There would be a degree of price collusion among neighbouring marinas, and this is their profit margin; they have no interest in making the market efficient.

When the auctions close, unless you were bidding on multiple berths concurrently, and running the risk of winning and paying for berths you don't need, you could suddenly find yourself out of options.
 
shmoo said:
I would see real system running on one of the lesser used marine VHF frequencies Using contention protocols something like AIS, marinas (or a berth broker) could broadcast current bid/offers and boats within range could bid.
Click to expand...

Could you explain "contention protocols " and how they work for someone a bit dim, please.
 
wotayottie said:
Could you explain "contention protocols " and how they work for someone a bit dim, please.
Click to expand...
AIS uses a contention protocol.

HEALTH WARNING This is all simplified. Don't base important decisions on it!

All the ships transmit on the same frequency. Clearly if more than one ship transmits its data burst at a time they will both get hosed. There are a number of "slots" in each second. New ships entering the area (or just switching on) have their AIS sets determine when those slots are by listening to existing transmissions. If there are none to listen to then there are none to interfere with so there isn't a problem. New ships bags an empty slot. The contention comes in when there is more traffic than slots. I am not familiar enough with AIS to know what its strategy is for resolving contention but there are a number of established ways, one of which is to go ahead and transmit anyway, and listen while doing so. If someone else is transmitting at same time both stations will be aware their burst got hosed, and both will then back off for a random amounts of time and try again.

This will be modified to allow for data of different priorities - clearly speed and heading are more important than name and destination.

Google "Slotted Aloha" for background on contended radio data protocols.
 
Last edited:
I know iPhone apps are very trendy and all, but this would work well on a bog standard MIDP 2.0 device, and thus would work for my 15 quid payg phone as well.

You could communicate via SMS as well, which simplifies the network requirement no end.

By charging for the SMS's (that must go to a gateway of course) the project becomes self funding and thus only needs marina support in that the gateway operators need to be able to phone up for the current price.
 
shmoo said:
I am not familiar enough with AIS to know what its strategy is for resolving contention but there are a number of established ways, one of which is to go ahead and transmit anyway, and listen while doing so. If someone else is transmitting at same time both stations will be aware their burst got hosed, and both will then back off for a random amounts of time and try again.
Click to expand...

That doesn't work for radio protocols for a number of reasons.

AIS (and ADS-B used by aircraft) uses the Self-Organising TDMA scheme invented by Håkan Lans - which relies on having reliable UTC (which is one of the reasons AIS transmitters must have their own GPS aerial).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top