Coordination of plural reservations (e.g., plural trip segments; transportation and accommodation, etc.)

Pricing graph representation for sets of pricing solutions for travel planning system

6609098

Abstract

An airline travel planning system is described. The system includes a server computer executing a server process including a search process to search for set of pricing solutions in accordance with at least one destination and at least one origin. The search process represents the set of pricing solutions in the form of a directed acyclic graph. The system also includes a client computer executing a client process on the set of pricing solutions. The client process has a manipulation process that manipulates the set of pricing solutions in response to user preferences. Several processes are described including a process responsive to user preferences and to set of pricing solutions that provides pricing solutions sorted by said user preference, a process that sorts set of pricing solutions to produce a subset of said set of pricing solutions in accordance with user specified preferences, and a process that prunes from the directed acyclic graph nodes that are no longer contained within the subset of set of pricing solutions.


Claims

What is claimed is:

1. A computer program product residing on a computer readable medium for determining a set of fares for a set of itineraries comprising instructions for causing a computer to:

retrieve itinerary sets for at least one slice of a journey;

parse retrieved itinerary sets into faring atoms that correspond to one or more travel unit segments spanned by a single fare, wherein faring atoms are shared across itineraries;

apply rules to the faring atoms to produce fare components;

construct from the fare components a set of fares that are valid for and associated with the itinerary sets.

2. The computer program of claim 1 wherein the instructions for causing the computer to construct a set of fares further comprises instructions for causing the computer to

construct priceable units from the fare components; and

link itineraries and priceable units into pricing solutions.

3. The computer program of claim 2 wherein the pricing solutions correspond to the set of valid fares and information linking the set of valid fares to segments of the journey.

4. The computer program product of claim 2 wherein the instructions for causing the computer to link itineraries and priceable units, links the itineraries and priceable units through a data structure that represents the set of pricing solutions.

5. The computer program product as recited in conjunction with claim 4 wherein the instructions that cause the computer to apply rules further comprises instructions for causing the computer to

defer applying a rule to a faring atom if the rule references information outside of the faring atom; and

apply deferred rules when all fare components for evaluating the rule have been delivered to the fare.

6. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein parsing of itineraries into faring atoms further comprises instructions for causing the computer to:

group faring atoms by faring markets; and

partition itineraries into divisions of faring atoms.

7. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein the instructions for causing the computer to partition itineraries further comprises instructions for causing the computer to:

split sequences of legs of itineraries into individual faring atoms if the legs are on a same airline.

8. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein the pricing solutions are represented in a compact form.

9. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein the compact form is a graph type data structure.

10. A method for determining a set of fares for a set of itineraries comprises:

retrieving itinerary sets for at least one slice of a journey;

parsing retrieved itinerary sets into faring atoms that correspond to one or more travel unit segments spanned by a single fare;

applying rules to the faring atoms to produce fare components; and

constructing from the fare components a set of fares that are valid for and associated with the itinerary sets.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein determining a set of fares for a set of itineraries further comprises:

constructing priceable units from the fare components; and

linking itineraries and priceable units into a representation of a set of pricing solutions.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the pricing solutions correspond to the set of valid fares and information linking the set of valid fares to segments of the itinerary.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein linking itineraries and priceable units links the itineraries and priceable units through a data structure that represents the pricing solutions.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein applying rules further comprises:

deferring applying a rule to a faring atom if the faring atom represents a fare outside of the faring components involving the faring atom; and

applying deferred rules to the faring atom once the faring components correspond to the fare.

15. The method of claim 10 wherein parsing of itineraries into faring atoms further comprises:

grouping faring atoms by faring markets; and

partitioning itineraries in divisions of faring atoms by slices of a journey.

16. The method of claim 10 wherein the instructions for causing the computer to partition itineraries further comprises:

splitting sequences of legs of itineraries into individual faring atoms if the legs are flights on a same airline.

17. A method for determining pricing solutions comprises:

retrieving itinerary sets for all slices of a journey;

decomposing said itinerary sets into faring atoms;

applying rules to said faring atoms to produce valid faring atoms that are grouped into faring components;

constructing priceable unit data structures from the faring components; and

linking itineraries and priceable units into a data structure that represents pricing solutions.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the data structure that represents the pricing solutions is a graph type data structure.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein applying rules further comprises:

deferring application of rules to faring atoms if the faring atoms represent a fare outside of the faring components involving the faring atoms; and

applying deferred rules to the faring atoms once information from the fare is within the faring components.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein parsing of itineraries into faring atoms further comprises:

grouping faring atoms by faring markets; and

partitioning itineraries into divisions of faring atoms.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein partitioning itineraries further comprises:

splitting sequences of legs of itineraries into individual faring atoms if the legs are flights on a same airline.

22. A computer system for determining pricing solutions comprises:

a computer; and

a computer readable medium storing a computer program that causes the computer to:

retrieve itinerary sets for all slices of a journey;

decompose said itinerary sets into faring atoms;

apply rules to the faring atoms to produce valid faring atoms that are grouped into faring components;

construct priceable unit data structures from the faring components; and

link itineraries and priceable units into a data structure that represents pricing solutions.

23. The system of claim 22 wherein the data structure that represents the pricing solutions is a graph type data structure.

24. The system of claim 23 wherein the instructions that cause the computer to apply rules further comprise instructions that cause the computer to:

defer application of rules to faring atoms if the faring atoms represent a fare outside of the faring components involving the faring atoms; and

apply deferred rules to the faring atoms once information from the fare is within the faring components.

25. The system of claim 22 wherein instructions that cause the computer to parse the itineraries into faring atoms further comprises instructions that cause the computer to:

group faring atoms by faring markets; and

partition itineraries into divisions of faring atoms.

26. The method of claim 22 wherein partitioning itineraries further comprises:

splitting sequences of legs of itineraries into individual faring atoms if the legs are flights on a same airline.


Description

BACKGROUND

This invention relates to computerized travel planning systems.

Travel planning systems are used to produce itineraries and prices by selecting suitable travel units from databases containing geographic, scheduling and pricing information. In the airline industry, fundamental travel units include "flights" (sequences of regularly scheduled takeoffs and landings assigned a common identifier) and "fares" (prices published by airlines for travel between two points). The term "itinerary" is often used to refer to a sequence of flights on particular dates, and the term "pricing solution" is often used to refer to a combination of fares and itineraries that satisfies a travel request.

The databases usually contain schedule information provided by airlines, typically in the so-called Standard Schedules Information Manual (SSIM) format, and usually fares published by airlines and resellers, typically provided through the intermediary Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCO). The database may also contain "availability" information that determines whether space is available on flights, or this may be obtained through communication links to external sources such as airlines.

Presently, so-called computer reservation system (CRSS) operate to produce fare and schedule information. There are four generally known computer reservation systems that operate in the United States, Sabre, Galileo, Amadeus and WorldSpan. The typical CRS contains a periodically updated central database that is accessed by subscribers such as travel agents through computer terminals. The subscribers use the computer reservation system to determine what airline flights are operating in a given market, what fares are offered and whether seats are available on flights to make bookings and issue tickets to clients.

The computer reservation systems typically conduct searches using the information contained in the database to produce itineraries that satisfy a received request. The search results are sorted and returned to the requester s computer for display. Typically, the number of possible itineraries and pricing solutions that are returned by a CRS is a small portion of the total set that may satisfy a passengers request.

SUMMARY

According to an aspect of the invention, a computer program product residing on a computer readable medium for determining a set of fares for a set of itineraries includes instructions for causing a computer to retrieve itinerary sets for at least one slice of a journey and parse retrieved itinerary sets into faring atoms that correspond to one or more travel unit segments spanned by a single fare, wherein faring atoms are shared across itineraries. The product also includes instructions to cause the computer to apply rules to the faring atoms to produce fare components and construct from the fare components a set of fares that are valid for and associated with the itinerary sets.

According to a further aspect of the invention a method for determining a set of fares for a set of itineraries includes retrieving itinerary sets for at least one slice of a journey, parsing retrieved itinerary sets into faring atoms that correspond to one or more travel unit segments spanned by a single fare and applying rules to the faring atoms to produce fare components. The method also includes constructing from the fare components a set of fares that are valid for and associated with the itinerary sets.

According to a further aspect of the invention, a method for determining pricing solutions includes retrieving itinerary sets for all slices of a journey and decomposing said itinerary sets into faring atoms. The method also includes applying rules to said faring atoms to produce valid faring atoms that are grouped into faring components, constructing priceable unit data structures from the faring components and linking itineraries and priceable units into a data structure that represents pricing solutions.

According to a still further aspect of the invention, a computer system for determining pricing solutions includes a computer and a computer readable medium storing a computer program. The computer program has instructions that causes the computer to retrieve itinerary sets for all slices of a journey, decompose said itinerary sets into faring atoms, apply rules to the faring atoms to produce valid faring atoms that are grouped into faring components, construct priceable unit data structures from the faring components, and link itineraries and priceable units into a data structure that represents pricing solutions.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing features and other aspects of the invention will be described in further detail by the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a client server travel planning system.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing a server process used in the system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing a client process used in the system of FIG. 1.

FIGS. 3A-3B are diagrammatic representations of pricing graphs.

FIGS. 4A-4B are flow charts showing a faring process used in the server process of FIG. 2.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing a process to decompose an itinerary into faring atoms used in the process of FIG. 4A.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing a process for partitioning itineraries used in the process of FIG. 5.

FIG. 7 is a flow chart showing a process for applying rules to faring atoms used in the faring process of FIG. 4A.

FIGS. 8A-8C are flow charts showing a process for retrieving fare rules.

FIG. 9 is a flow chart showing a process for applying fare rules.

FIG. 10 is a flow chart showing a process for determining priceable units used in the faring process of FIGS. 4A-4B.

FIG. 10A is a flow chart showing a process for enumerating collections of sets of faring components used in the process of FIG. 10.

FIG. 11 is a flow chart showing a process for enumerating collections of faring components used in the process of FIG. 10.

FIG. 12 is a flow chart showing a process for representing priceable units in a compact representation.

FIGS. 13-15 are flow charts showing processes for determining priceable units.

FIG. 16 is a flow chart showing a process for producing slice label sets.

FIG. 17 is a flow chart showing the process for constructing a pricing graph.

FIG. 18 is a block diagram showing the relationship between the pricing graph and a graphical user interface for the travel planning system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 19 is a flow chart showing various enumeration functions.

FIG. 20; is a diagram of a window depicting a user interface.

FIG. 21 is a diagram of a window used in an initial query;

FIG. 22 is a diagram of a window depicting an exemplary solution of a one-way travel request.

FIG. 23 is a diagram of a window depicting an itinerary and associated fares corresponding to one of the solutions depicted in FIG. 21.

FIG. 24 is a diagram of a window depicting an exemplary solution of round trip travel request.

FIG. 25 is a diagram of a window depicting an outbound itinerary and a possible return itinerary and associated fares corresponding to one of the solutions depicted in FIG. 24.

FIG. 26 shows the window generally depicted in conjunction with FIG. 24 modified based upon a user selected criteria.

FIG. 27 shows a window depicting a histogram.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Referring now to FIG. 1, a travel planning system 10 is shown. The travel planning system can be used with various forms of travel such as airline, bus and railroad and is particularly adapted for air travel. It includes a server computer 12 having a computer memory or storage media 14 storing a server process 15. The server process includes a scheduler process 16 and a faring process 18. The scheduler process 16 is any suitable scheduler process that will produce from a travel request sets of flights that can satisfy the request. The faring process 18 is a process that determines a set of valid fares and links the set of valid fares to the sets of flights to form a pricing solution. The server process 15 can be configured to produce other travel-related information as a result of a user query. For example, the server process 12 can produce routes or airline suggestions, optimal travel times and suggestions for alternative requests.

The travel planning system 10 also includes a plurality of databases 20a, 20b which store industry-standard information pertaining to travel (e.g., airline, bus, railroad, etc. ). For example, database 20a can store the Airline Tariff Publishing Company database of published airline fares and their associated rules, routings and other provisions, the so-called ATPCO database. Database 20b can be an inventory of current availability of airline information for a particular carrier and so forth. The databases 20a-20b are typically stored locally and updated periodically by accessing remote resources 21a, 21b that maintain the respective databases.

The system 10 also includes a plurality of clients 30a-3c (generally, 30) implemented by terminals or preferably personal computers. The clients 30a-30c are coupled to the server 12 via a network 22 which is also used to couple the remote resources (21a-21c) that supply tile databases 20a-20b to the server 12. The network 22 can be any local or wide area networks or an arrangement such as the Internet.

The clients 30a-30c are preferably smart clients. That is, using client 30c as all illustrative example, client 30c includes a client computer system 32 including a computer memory or storage media 34 that stores a client process 36 and a set of pricing solution 38. The set of pricing solutions 38 in one embodiment is provided from the server process 15 and comprises a set of fares that are valid for a journey, and associated information linking the fares to the flight segments of the journey.

The set of pricing solutions 38 is obtained from the server 12 in response to a user request sent from the client 30c to the server 12. The server 12 executes the server process 15 using the scheduling process 16 and the faring process 18 to produce a set of pricing solutions for a particular journey. If requested by the client, for example client 30c, the server 12 will deliver the set of pricing solutions 38 to the requesting client 30c. Under control of the client process 36, the requesting client 30c can store and/or logically manipulate the set of pricing solutions 38 to extract or display a subset of the set of pricing solutions as a display representation 41 on the monitor 40.

SERVER PROCESS

Referring now to FIG. 2, the server process 18 is preferably executed on the server computer 12 but could be executed on the client computer 32. The server process 18 is responsive to a user input query 48. The user input query 48 would typically include minimal information needed to determine a set of pricing solutions. This information typically requires at a minimum, an origin and a destination for travel. In addition, the information could also include times, dates and so forth.

This query 48 is fed to the scheduler process 16 that produces a large number of itineraries, that is, sequences of flight segments between the origin and destination for each slice of a journey. Examples of scheduler systems that may be used include the OAG Flight Desk.RTM. (Official Airlines Guide, a division of Reed Travel Group) or schedule components of computer reservation systems (CRS's) such as Sabre.RTM., Apollo.RTM., Amadeus.RTM. and WorldSpan.RTM.. It is preferable in order to obtain the largest number of possible itineraries to use a scheduler with dynamic connection generation. Such a scheduler is described in co-pending patent application entitled SCHEDULER SYSTEM FOR TRAVEL PLANNING SYSTEM, Ser. No. 09/109,622, filed on Jul. 2, 1998 by Carl G. deMarckeni et al. and assigned to the assignee of the invention and incorporated herein by reference.

The scheduler process 16 provides the itineraries to a faring process 18. The faring process 18 provides a set of pricing solutions 38 by finding valid fares corresponding to the itineraries produced by the scheduler process 16. The faring process 18 validates the fares for inclusion in the set of pricing solutions 38.

The set of pricing solutions 38 is used by an availability system 58 that interrogates an airline inventory database 20b to determine whether there are seats available on particular flights for particular pricing solutions. The availability system 58 uses the airline inventory database 20b as a filter to remove from the set of pricing solutions 38 those pricing solutions for which there are not available seats. The availability system 58 is shown after the faring process 18. However, it could be included at nearly any point in the server process 18. In addition, it is shown being fed by the pricing solution when it may only receive flight information from the scheduler process 16 depending on the airline.

The client system 30c receives the results from the server process 18. These results are the set of pricing solutions 38 and/or pricing solutions based upon availability. The client process 36 executed in the client 30c uses this information or a subset of it to access a booking system 62 to provide a booking and reservation for a user selected, enumerated pricing solution, as will be described below.

CLIENT PROCESS

Referring now to FIG. 3, the client process 36 receives a listing of possible itineraries from the scheduler process 16 as well as the set of fares from the faring process 18 or the availability system 58. The set of pricing solutions 38, if obtained from the faring process 18, will include a large number of pricing solutions for which there is not any available inventory. Therefore, the components would need to be first checked out with an airline prior to booking. The set of pricing solutions 38 if obtained after the availability system 58 should contain pricing solutions which have a high degree of availability for booking on an airline.

In one embodiment, the set of pricing solutions 38 is provided in a compact representation 38'. A preferred, compact representation 38' of the set of pricing solutions 38 is as a data structure comprising a plurality of nodes including itineraries and fares and that can be logically manipulated using value functions to enumerate a set of pricing solutions. One preferred example is a graph data structure type particularly a directed acyclic graph (DAG) that contains nodes that can be logically manipulated or combined 74 to extract 75 a plurality of pricing solutions for display 72.

The client process 36 receives the flight information from scheduler process 16 and the pricing solution from the faring process 18 or the availability system 56 and enumerates pricing solutions from the directed acyclic graph (DAG) representation. The enumerated 70 set of pricing Solutions is rendered or displayed 72 in a graphical user interface 41 on the client monitor 40 (FIG. 1) in a manner as will be described below.

In response to user input 76, the client 40 can manipulate 74 travel options and call query the local copy of the DAG to produce and display a subset of pricing solutions enumerated from the DAG that satisfy the query 76. The manipulation process used to control the display and change the travel options will be described below.

A directed acyclic graph (DAG) is used to represent the compact set of pricing solutions 38' since, in general, the number of nodes needed to represent a typical pricing solution will be substantially less than the actual number of pricing solutions represented by the DAG. This significantly increases the efficiency of transfer of a set of pricing solutions 38 from the server process 18 to the client process 36. The DAG representation also minimizes the storage requirements for the set of pricing solutions 38. The DAG representation permits the use of powerful search, sorting and manipulation processes to produce various subsets of set of pricing solutions in an efficient manner. As used herein, a directed acyclic graph (DAG) is a set of nodes connected by directed arcs, that have no loops of arcs in the same direction. If a node A is connected to a node B via an arc A.fwdarw.B, then A is called a parent of B, and B is called a child of A. Each node may have zero, one or many parents and zero, one or many children. As used herein, a pricing solution that is represented by a graph will be referred to as a pricing graph.

PRICING-GRAPH

A pricing graph that is produced by the faring process 18 and that represents a pricing solution includes three types of nodes. The first type of node is an exclusive node, i.e., "OR" node. An OR node N with children A, B and C represents an exclusive choice between A, B and C. In other words, a pricing-solution involving node N contains either the fares and itineraries represented by A, or by B, or by C.

The second type of node is a collection node, i.e., an "AND" node. An AND node N with children A, B and C represents the sum of A, B and C. In other words, a pricing solution involving N contains all the fares and itineraries found within A, B and C.

The third type of node is a terminal node. Terminal nodes are used to hold pricing objects. Pricing objects include fares, itineraries, surcharges, routes, prices, booking codes, taxes, rules/restrictions and other information of the user or information that might be part of a travel option. Collectively, "AND" and "OR" nodes are non-terminal nodes.

An example of the pricing-graph for a hypothetical round-trip journey is presented below in TABLE 1. For each node, its type and children are listed. If a node is a terminal, the fare or itinerary is provided. Many nodes in the pricing graph have more than one parent.

    TABLE 1
    Node  Type  Children           Object
      0   OR    Nodes 1, 2, 3
      1   AND   Nodes 10, 14, 17, 17
      2   AND   Nodes 4, 5
      3   AND   Nodes 13, 15, 19, 19
      4   OR    Nodes 8, 9
      5   OR    Nodes 6, 7
      6   AND   Nodes 14, 16
      7   AND   Nodes 15, 18
      8   AND   Nodes 13, 16
      9   AND   Nodes 13, 18
     10   OR    Nodes 11, 12
     11   Itin.                    Slice 1: BOS.fwdarw.LAX UA023
     12   Itin.                    Slice 1: BOS.fwdarw.DFW UA100,
                                   DFW.fwdarw.LAX UA103
     13   Itin.                    Slice 1: BOS.fwdarw.SAN NW222
     14   Itin.                    Slice 2: LAX.fwdarw.BOS UA515
     15   Itin.                    Slice 2: SAN.fwdarw.BOS NW223
     16   Fare                     UA BOS-LAX One-way "Y"
     17   Fare                     UA BOS-LAX Round-trip
                                   "QE7NR"
     18   Fare                     NW BOS-SAN One-way "F"
     19   Fare                     NW BOS-SAN Round-trip
                                   "H7NR"


This pricing-graph represents a total of nine pricing solutions. These solutions can be extracted from the pricing-graph by descending from the root node, node 0. At every OR node a choice between children is made, and the choice determines the pricing-solution that results. At every AND node each child branch is descended, and the results are combined.

The term BOS.fwdarw.LAX UA023 is an itinerary which uses standard nomenclature to represent airports BOS and LAX, airline UA, and flight number 023. In general, conventional nomenclature used in the airline industry will be used herein.

The set of pricing-solutions that represented in the pricing-graph is presented in TABLE 2 below.

        TABLE 2
    Solution Number Itineraries                               Fares
           1        Slice 1: BOS.fwdarw.LAX UA023             UA BOS-LAX RT
     "QE7NR"
                    Slice 2: LAX.fwdarw.BOS UA515             UA BOS-LAX RT
     "QE7NR"
           2        Slice 1: BOS.fwdarw.LAX UA023             UA BOS-LAX OW "Y"
                    Slice 2: LAX.fwdarw.BOS UA515             UA BOS-LAX OW "Y"
           3        Slice 1: BOS.fwdarw.LAX UA023             UA BOS-LAX OW "Y"
                    Slice 2: SAN.fwdarw.BOS NW223             NW BOS-SAN OW "F"
           4        Slice 1: BOS.fwdarw.DFW UA100, DFW_LAX UA103 UA BOS-LAX RT
     "QE7NR"
                    Slice 2: LAX.fwdarw.BOS UA515             UA BOS-LAX RT
     "QE7NR"
           5        Slice 1: BOS.fwdarw.DFW UA100, DFW_LAX UA103 UA BOS-LAX OW
     "Y"
                    Slice 2: LAX.fwdarw.BOS UA515             UA BOS-LAX OW "Y"
           6        Slice 1: BOS.fwdarw.DFW UA100, DFW_LAX UA103 UA BOS-LAX OW
     "Y"
                    Slice 2: SAN.fwdarw.BOS NW223             NW BOS-SAN OW "F"
           7        Slice 1: BOS.fwdarw.SAN NW222             NW BOS-SAN OW "F"
                    Slice 2: LAX.fwdarw.BOS UA515             UA BOS-LAX OW "Y"
           8        Slice 1: BOS.fwdarw.SAN NW222             NW BOS-SAN RT
     "H7NR"
                    Slice 2: SAN.fwdarw.BOS NW223             NW BOS-SAN RT
     "H7NR"
           9        Slice 1: BOS.fwdarw.SAN NW222             NW BOS-SAN OW "F"
                    Slice 2: SAN.fwdarw.BOS NW223             NW BOS-SAN OW "F"


The pricing-graph encodes the requirement that two itineraries are combined, one from slice 1 and one from slice 2, to form a pricing solution. Further, each itinerary is spanned by fares. In this case each pricing solution involves two fares, and round-trip fares are combined with like round-trip fares. In most circumstances, the number of nodes in the pricing-graph is small compared to the number of pricing-solutions those nodes represent. In many cases, a graph of 10,000 or so nodes can represent more than 1,000,000,000 pricing-solutions.

Referring now to FIG. 3A, the nodes of the pricing graph corresponding to Table 1 are shown, as an example. This figure illustrates the manner in which nodes in the pricing graph data structure as represented in Table 1 are combined to provide the pricing solutions shown in Table 2. Using pricing solution No. 1 (from TABLE 2) as an example, it can be shown that starting at the top of the graph at node 0, node 0 allows for a choice between nodes 1, 2, and 3. For pricing solution No. 1, Node 1 is chosen. Node 1 is the AND node that points to nodes 10 and 14, and has two pointers to node 17. Node 10 is an OR node which provides a choice of either nodes 11 or nodes 12. Node 11 as shown in FIG. 3A corresponds to a terminal node, the itinerary ('BOS-LAX UA 023). Node 12 corresponds to a terminal node, the itinerary BOS-DFN UA 100, DFN-LAX UA 103. This second choice in node 10 will provide pricing solutions corresponding to numbers 4-6, respectively. Therefore, selecting node 11 provides the itinerary for the first slice of solution 1. The fare for pricing solution 1 is provided by node 17 which has two pointers, one for each slice, to the fare "US BOS-LAX RT QE7NR" corresponding to the fare shown for pricing solution no. 1 in Table 2 for the first slice. The second itinerary for pricing solution no. 1 is provided by node 14 which is referenced in AND node 1 that points to the itinerary LAX-BOS UA 515. The corresponding fare is also from terminal node 17 since it is a round trip fare UA BOS-LAX RT QE7NR.

A second one of the pricing solutions, for example, the pricing solution 4 incorporating the terminal node 12 is provided by starting at node 0, and using node 1. Node 1 is an AND node requiring that nodes 17 (twice), node 10, and node 14 be included. Node 10 is an OR node as mentioned above and is used to select node 12 which is the itinerary including segments "BOS-DFW UA 100" and "DFW-LAX UA 103". From node 1, node 14 the return itinerary LAX-BOS UA 515 also is reached. Node 17 also is chosen which contain the round trip fares. Similarly, the remaining ones of the pricing solutions can be extracted from the pricing graph in the same manner as the two examples given above.

As mentioned above, a graph will typically have many more pricing solutions than nodes in the graph. The example just illustrated in conjunction with FIG. 3A has 9 pricing solutions and 19 nodes which is an exception to that general rule. Another example of a pricing graph which does satisfy that general observation is shown in conjunction with FIG. 3B.

Referring now to FIG. 3B, a pricing graph is shown having 43 nodes N0-N42 that when combined represent 856 pricing solutions. Each node in the pricing graph has a number associated with it corresponding to the number of pricing solutions that is represents. In order to make this illustration of manageable size, identifiers (representing the nodes of the terminals) are substituted in the pricing graph for the actual terminal objects of the graph. Thus, as shown in FIG. 3B, outbound and return itineraries, and fare nodes are represented by the Nodes N20-N42

This pricing graph (TABLE 3) has 9 itineraries which can be combined with 14 fares represented by 13 AND nodes and 7 OR nodes. The pricing objects are represented by 23 nodes. The pricing graph has a combined total of 43 nodes to represent 876 pricing solutions.

FIG. 3B shows examples of a pricing graph for a round trip LAX-BOS journey. This example shown in FIG. 3B is generally more representative of an outcome of a faring search. That is, generally the pricing graph represents more pricing solutions than nodes contained in the graph.

    TABLE 3
    Node  Type  Children           Object
      0   AND   Nodes 1, 6, 11
      1   OR    Nodes 2, 3, 4
      2   AND   Nodes 5, 40
      3   AND   Nodes 41, 41
      4   AND   Nodes 42, 42
      5   OR    Nodes 39, 40
      6   OR    Nodes 7, 8, 9
      7   AND   Nodes 20, 10
      8   AND   Nodes 21, 10
      9   AND   Nodes 22, 10
     10   OR    Nodes 23, 24, 25, 26
     11   OR    Nodes 12, 13, 14,
                16, 17, 18
     12   AND   Nodes 27, 15
     13   AND   Nodes 28, 15
     14   AND   Nodes 29, 15
     15   AND   Nodes 30, 31, 32
     16   AND   Nodes 33, 19
     17   AND   Nodes 34, 19
     18   AND   Nodes 35, 19
     19   OR    Nodes 36, 37, 38
     20   Itin.                    Slice 1: LAX.fwdarw.DFW NW100,
     DFW.fwdarw.BOS AA223
     21   Itin.                    Slice 1: LAX.fwdarw.DFW NW137,
     DFW.fwdarw.BOS AA223
     22   Itin                     Slice 1: LAX.fwdarw.DFW NW137,
     DFW.fwdarw.BOS AA414
     23   Fare                     DFW, LAX NW "Y" OW
     24   Fare                     DFW, LAX NW "F" OW
     25   Fare                     DFW, LAX NW "C" OW
     26   Fare                     DFW, LAX NW "QA7" OW
     27   Itin.                    Slice 2: BOS.fwdarw.DFW AA67, DFW.fwdarw.LAX
     C0716
     28   Itin.                    Slice 2: BOS.fwdarw.DFW AA67, DFW.fwdarw.LAX
     C0717
     29   Itin.                    Slice 2: BOS.fwdarw.DFW AA67, DFW.fwdarw.LAX
     C0719
     30   Fare                     DFW, LAX CO "F" OW
     31   Fare                     DFW, LAX CO "C" OW
     32   Fare                     DFW, LAX CO "Y" OW
     33   Itin.                    Slice 2: BOS.fwdarw.DFW AA852,
     DFW.fwdarw.LAX DL186
     34   Itin.                    Slice 2: BOS.fwdarw.DFW AA852,
     DFW.fwdarw.LAX DL18O
     35   Itin.                    Slice 2: BOS.fwdarw.DFW AA852,
     DFW.fwdarw.LAX DL343
     36   Fare                     DFW, LAX DL "F" OW
     37   Fare                     DFW, LAX DL "C" OW
     38   Fare                     DFW, LAX DL "Y" OW
     39   Fare                     DFW, BOS AA "QE7NR" RT
     40   Fare                     DFW, BOS AA "QE7IP" RT
     41   Fare                     DFW, BOS AA "QE14NR" RT
     42   Fare                     DFW, BOS AA "QE21NR" RT


THE FARING SYSTEM

Referring now to FIGS. 4A and 4B, the faring process 18 includes a process 80 to retrieve itinerary sets for all slices in an itinerary. The itinerary sets are provided from the scheduler process 16 for each slice of a journey where a slice corresponds to a direction of travel. Thus, for example, for a round trip journey there would be two slices, one for the outbound part of the journey and one for the return part of the journey. The faring process 18 decomposes 82 the itinerary into faring atoms. As used herein, faring atoms refer to a sequence of flight segments or equivalently legs that are spanned by a single fare. For example, the itinerary

UA005 from DFW to BOS at 12:30 on 12NOV

UA010 from BOS to YYZ at 18:00 on 12NOV

AC121 from YYZ to YVR at 01:00 on 13NOV

the following faring-atoms as shown in TABLE 4.

             TABLE 4
        Faring-Atom Number     Legs and Departure Times
                1              DFW.fwdarw.BOS UA005 12NOV 12:30
                2              BOS.fwdarw.YYZ UA010 12NOV 18:00
                3              DFW.fwdarw.BOS UA005 12NOV 12:30
                               BOS.fwdarw.YYZ UA010 12NOV 18:00
                4              YYZ.fwdarw.YVR AC121 13NOV 01:00


A faring atom is represented by a data structure that preferably includes the following fields as shown in TABLE 5:

    TABLE 5
    Faring-Atom fields   Use
    legs-and-departure-times A list of legs and their departure times and
                         dates.
    faring-market        The faring-market that this faring-atom is in.
    cached-results       A storage space used to eliminate redundant
                         computation in the rule-checking process. As
                         rule record-2s are applied to faring-atoms, the
                         results are stored in this field. If the same
                         record-2 is applied again, the answer is
                         retrieved rather than recomputed.
    priceable-unit-labels A list of the priceable-unit-labels that the
                         faring-atom enters into.


After the faring process 18 decomposes the itineraries into faring atoms, the faring process 18 retrieves fares 84 and rules 86 for each faring atom by accessing the fares/rules database 20a mentioned above. At this point a fare's routing is retrieved from a routing database and applied to a faring atom. If the routing test fails, the fare cannot be applied to the faring atom and a fare component is not built.

The faring process 18 applies the rules 88 to the faring atoms to produce components. Fare-components are combinations of faring-atoms and fares. Fare-components (TABLE 6) are produced if a fare's rules pass a preliminary check on a faring-atom. They are used to store deferred rules (e.g., deferred record-2s and combinability record-2s) that are applied at a later stage of processing 88a. Fare components also store extra information produced during the rule-checking process, such as information about surcharges and penalties and discounts that are applied to the base fare price.

    TABLE 6
    Fare-Component fields Use
    fare                 The fare-component's fare.
    faring-atom          The fare-component's faring-atom.
    deferred-record-2s   A list of non-category-10 record-2s that have
                         not been fully evaluated.
    combinability-record-2 If the fare's rules include a category-10
                         ("Fare Combinability" record-2, it is stored
                         here.
    surcharges           A list of surcharges, penalties, discounts and
                         other pieces of information produced during
                         the rule-checking process.


From the fare components the faring process 18 constructs 90 priceable units. For certain types of rules such as those which require access to fares and/or flights from outside of the fare component, those rules are stored in the fare component for later or deferred evaluation. The priceable unit process 90, takes valid fare components and constructs priceable units from the fare components. This process 90 involves grouping fare components from different slices and checking fare component combination restrictions. At this stage of processing, the rules deferred in step 88 are reapplied.

Priceable units are represented by priceable-unit-cores and priceable-unit-labels. Priceable-unit-cores are collections of fares and other information associated with fares within a priceable-unit, such as discounts and penalties and surcharges. Priceable-unit-cores (TABLE 7) are referenced by priceable-unit-labels.

    TABLE 7
    Priceable-Unit-Core fields Use
    fares                  A list of fares
    slice-numbers          A list of the slices the fares originate from.
    surcharges             A list of surcharges, penalties, discounts and
                           other pieces of information produced during
                           the rule-checking process.


Priceable-unit-labels group a set of priceable-unit-cores with sets of faring-atoms. Together, they are used to represent sets of priceable-units (TABLE 8).

    TABLE 8
    Priceable-Unit-Label
    fields               Use
    priceable-unit-cores A set of priceable-unit cores
    slice-numbers        A list of the slices the fares and faring-atoms
                         originate from.
    faring-atom-sets     A list of sets of faring-atoms, one per slice.


When all the fare components within a priceable unit are known, rules that were deferred from the processing 88 are applied 92 to the priceable unit sets of faring atoms.

After evaluation of the deferred record-2s at the priceable unit stage, the itineraries and priceable units are grouped together into complete set of pricing solutions. This occurs by a link process 94 that links itineraries to corresponding pricing units from different slices to provide 96 the pricing solution. At this juncture, any remaining, cross priceable unit fare combinability checks are performed to eliminate invalid combinations.

The linking process involves two additional data structures slice-label-sets and open-label-sets. Slice-label-sets group itinerary divisions by the multi-slice priceable-unit-labels they can enter into. In each slice of a journey, a unique slice-label-set is constructed for every set of multi-slice priceable-unit-labels. Each slice-label-set stores both the set of multi-slice priceable-unit-labels and a set of itinerary-label-holders, which contain single-slice priceable-unit-labels on a per-itinerary basis. Each slice-label-set is a pair of an itinerary and a set of division-label-holders. Each of these division-label-holders is a pair of a division and a set of sets of single-slice priceable-unit-labels (TABLE 9).

                               TABLE 9
                               Use
    Slice-Label-Set fields
    multi-slice-PU-labels      A set of multi-slice PU-labels.
    itinerary-label-holders    A set of itinerary-label-holders.
    Itinerary-Label-Holder fields
    itinerary                  An itinerary.
    division-label-holders     A set of division-label-holders.
    Division-Label-Holder fields
    division                   An itinerary division.
    single-slice-PU-label-sets A set of sets of single-slice PU-labels.


Open-label-sets (TABLE 10) are used to summarize the state of the linking process 94. Each is a set of "open" multi-slice priceable-unit-labels and a set of backward-links. Each of these backward-links is a pair of a slice-label-set and an open-label-set.

                             TABLE 10
                             Use
        Open-Label-Set fields
        open-PU-labels       A set of open multi-slice PU-labels.
        backward-links       A set of backward-links.
        Backward-Link fields
        slice-label-set      A slice-label-set.
        open-label-set       An open-label-set.


The pricing solution resulting from the linking process 94 is used to construct a pricing graph from the various data structures built during the preceding processes. This pricing graph is transmitted to the client process or can be stored for later use or transmission. A pseudocode representation of the high level processing logic involved in the above search procedure is set out below in TABLE 11.

    TABLE 11
    price-itinerary-sets(itinerary-sets, fare-database, rule-database,
     routing-database, environmental-information)
        //
        // itinerary-sets is a set of sets of itineraries, one per slice.
        // environmental-information contains information about the passenger,
     the current date, the location
        // where tickets will be purchased, and other non-itinerary-based
     information that is necessary for applying
        // fare rules.
        //
        Let faring-market-sets = { }
        // Construct itinerary-divisions, faring-markets and faring-atoms.
        Let slice-number = 1
        For itinerary-set in itinerary-sets
            //
            // create-divisions constructs the itinerary-divisions,
     faring-markets and faring-atoms for
            // all the itineraries within a slice. It returns a set of
     faring-markets.
            faring-market-sets += create-divisions(itineraries, slice-number,
     fare-database)
            slice-number += 1
        // Apply fare rules, oonstructing fare-components in each
     faring-market.
        For faring-market-set in faring-market-sets
            //
            // apply-fare-rules constructs fare-components for each
     faring-market within a slice.
            // This process contains pseudo-code for apply-fare-rules.
            apply-fare-rules(faring-market-set, fare-database, rule-database,
                               routing-database, environmental-information)
        // Create priceable-units.
        // for create-priceable-units
        create-priceable-units(faring-market-sets)
        // Link itineraries between slices. This procedure returns either nil,
     if there are no pricing-solutions, or
        // a "root" open-label-set. This process is described in
     link-itineraries
        Let root-object = link-itineraries(itinerary-sets)
        If (root-object = nil)
            return(nil)
        // Create the pricing-graph from the data-structures that have been
     built in the preceding steps.
        // This process includes pseudo-code for create-pricing-graph.
        Let root-node = create-pricing-graph(root-object)
        // Return the pricing graph.
        return(root-node)


Referring now to FIG. 5, the process 82 to decompose an itinerary into faring atoms includes a retrieval process 100 that retrieves all itineraries for all slices in a journey. For each itinerary in each slice, the process 82 groups faring atoms by faring markets at 104 and partitions itineraries into the divisions of faring atoms at 106.

Referring now to FIG. 6, itineraries are partitioned into divisions of faring atoms by examining 110 for each itinerary whether or not the itinerary includes more than one leg 112 on the same airline 114. For each sequence on the same airline, a faring-atom is produced. If the sequence has more than one leg, the sequence is also split into multiple faring-atoms (at 116), resulting in more than one division of the itinerary into a set of faring-atoms. The process checks 118 whether fares exist for the airline in the markets spanned by each faring atom. Otherwise, the process will branch from the examination process 112 and the airline check process 114 to a fare check process 118 to check in the fare database 20a that a fare exists for the airline in the market spanned by the faring atom. If all of the faring atoms within a division have at least one fare in the market, a division for the market is produced at 120. Another possible implementation creates divisions by producing all possible partitions of legs into faring-atoms.

A high-level pseudocode representation for the algorithm that generates faring atoms, faring markets and faring divisions for each itinerary within a slice is set forth below in TABLE 12.

    TABLE 12
    create-divisions(itineraries slice-number, fare-database)
        Let faring-atoms = { }
        Let faring-markets = { }
        Subroutine get-faring-market(origin-airport, destination-airport,
     airline)
            Let origin-city = city(origin-airport)
            Let destination-city = city(destination-airport)
            Let previous-faring-market = find(<origin-city,
     destination-city, airline>, faring-markets)
            If (previous-faring-market)
                return(previous-faring-market)
            Else
                If (fares-exist(origin-city, destination-city, airline))
                    Let faring-market = new-faring-market( )
                    faring-market.slice-number = slice-number
                    faring-market.origiin-city = origin-city
                    faring-market.destination-city = destination-city
                    faring-market.airline = airline
                    faring-market.faring-atoms = { }
                    faring-markets += faring-market
                    return(faring-market)
                Else
                    return(nil)
        Subroutine get-faring-atom(legs-and-departure-times, origin-airport,
     destination-airport, airline)
            Let previous-faring-atom = find(legs-and-departure-times,
     faring-atoms)
            If (previous-faring-atom)
                return(previous-faring-atom)
            Else
                Let faring-market = get-faring-market(origin-airport,
     destination-airport, airline)
                If (faring-market < > nil)
                    Let faring-atom = new-faring-atom( )
                    faring-atom.faring-market = faring-market
                    faring-atom.legs-and-departure-times =
     legs-and-departure-times
                    faring-atom.priceable-unit-labels = { }
                    faring-atom.cached-results = { }
                    faring-market.faring-atoms += new-faring-atom
                    faring-atoms += faring-atom
                    return(faring-atom)
                Else
                    return(nil)
        Subroutine get-online-divisions(legs-and-departure-times,
     origin-airport, destination-airport, airline)
            Let online-divisions = { }
            Let number-of-legs = length(legs-and-departure-times)
            Let single-faring-atom = get-faring-atom(legs-and-departure-times,
     origin-airport, destination-airport, airline)
            If (single-faring-atom < > nil)
                online-divisions += list(single-faring-atom)
            For i from 1 to number-of-legs - 1
                Let legs-and-departure-times1 = legs-and-departure-times [1 . .
     . i]
                Let legs-and-departure-times2 = legs-and-departure-times[i+1 .
     . . number-of-legs]
                Let destination-airport1 =
     destination-airport(faring-atom-legs1)
                Let origin-airport2 = origin-airport(faring-atom-legs2)
                If (is-not-same-flight-segment(legs-and-departure-times1,
     legs-and-departure-times2))
                    Let faring-atom1 =
     get-faring-atom(legs-and-departure-times1, origin-airport,
                                                  destination-airport1,
     airline)
                    Let faring-atom2 =
     get-faring-atom(legs-and-departure-times2, origin-airport2,
                                                  destination-airport, airline)
                    If (faring-atom1 < > nil and faring-atom2 < >
     nil)
                       online-divisions += list(faring-atom1, faring-atom2)
            return(online-divisions)
        For each itinerary in itineraries
            Let divisions = { { } }
            Let legs-and-departure-times = itinerary.legs-and-departure-times


Referring now to FIG. 7, a process 88 to apply the faring rules to faring atoms is shown. The input to the application process 88 includes the fare/rules database 20a and faring markets 130. For each faring atom in each faring market, a fare and corresponding rules are retrieved 132 from fare/rules database 20a. The rules are applied to the faring-atoms at 134. Because faring-atoms are shared across itineraries, it is only necessary to apply a fare's rules to a faring atom once no matter how many itineraries the faring-atom may appear in. The results of rule applications are cached 136. Caching of a rule minimizes computational effort. This is because the rule application process 88 involves many redundancies, because different fares share rule restrictions. Valid fare/faring-atom combinations are stored 138 in the form of fare-components.

Referring to FIGS. 8A and 8B, a process 132 for retrieving, rules and footnotes from the rules database 20a containing the ATPCO rules, routes and fare includes retrieving 150 general rules commonly referred to as record_0's for each faring atom in a faring market. The retrieved general rules are searched 152 to find the first record_0 matched to the faring atom to produce a matched record_0. If there is a matched record_0, it is stored at 154. Whether or not there are matched record_0's, the process 132 retrieves 156 application rules commonly referred to as record_1 rules. The retrieved application rules are searched to find 158 the first record_1 matched to each of the faring atoms. The first matched record_1's is stored 160.

If after traversing through all the record_l's there are no matches found, the process will return a "FAIL" at 162 and terminate indicating that the faring atom cannot be used by the faring process 18.

If there is a match, the process 132 retrieves 164 category controls (commonly referred to as record_2's). The process 132 will find 166 the first record-2 in each category that matches the fare. Record_2's or the category control records typically comprise a large number of categories currently 30 different categories. The process is run for each category. It is not necessary that every category have a match and in many instances many if not most categories will lot have a match. Rules in those categories that have a match are stored at 168 and the process continues to run at 170 until all categories have been traversed. If all categories have not been traversed, a pointer to a next category 172 is set and the next category is retrieved 164. Record-3's are retrieved 176 as part of the rule application process 132.

The ATPCO rule retrieval process 132 that retrieves the rules for a fare includes record-matching processes 150, 156, and 164 (FIG. 8A) that may depend on the departure date of the faring-atom. To minimize computational effort expended in rule retrieval 132, rules for a fare are not retrieved once for every faring-atom, but at most once per departure-date. To further minimize computation, a caching mechanism is employed. Referring now to FIG. 8C, a process that checks dates for rule retrieval includes retrieving 177 a current date from a faring market that contains faring atoms with multiple travel dates, and a stored date corresponding to a latest stored date that a result for the rule remains valid. The current date is compared 178 to the stored date and if the rule still remains valid (i.e., the current date falls within a bound set by the stored date) the rule is not retrieved and instead rules that had been cached are used. If the stored date for the rule is not valid then a new rule is retrieved 179 and a new date is subsequently stored 180 for the new rule.

Referring now to FIG. 9, a process 134 for applying the rules retrieved with process 132 is shown. The rule application process 134 operates on each faring atom. The process 134 applies 181 the record-1 records to check for booking codes etc. The process 134 determines 182 whether each record-2 was cached in the faring atom. If a record-2 was cached in the faring atom, the process returns 183 the cached results. Otherwise, the process 134 applies 184 the record_2's for each of the stored record_2 categories. Rules provisions are expressed is "record_2s", which are retrieved 132, as described in FIGS. 8A and 8B. These record_2s express logical relations over so called "record_3s", which are records that contain detailed provisions. Individual procedures are provided for evaluating each record_3 as applied to a faring atom. Each record_3 procedure returns either DEFER, FAIL, PASS, NO_MATCH or UNAVAILABLE, and these results are combined according to the logic in the record_2 to produce a result of either DEFER, FAIL or PASS for the entire record_2. The proper procedures for applying record_3s and for combining their results according to record_2s are described in the ATPCO documentation. The "PASS" value is an extension used here since not all record_3s can be fully evaluated on the basis of the faring-atom alone. The RECORD_2 result is either PASS, FAIL or DEFER (the other two values are from record_3s).

As a result of returning a cached result or of the application of the record_2's, the process can return one of five possible results, "DEFER", "PASS", or "FAIL." The record as well as its results DEFER, PASS, or FAIL, are reached at 136 in the faring atom. The result FAIL causes the process 134 to exit 190. Whereas, returning a pass or a defer permits the process 134 to continue to examine remaining record-2s. A defer or pass result is stored 185 and it is determined 186 whether all record-2s have been processed. If all records have not been applied/examined if cached, the next record-2 is retrieved at 186a. After all record-2s have been examined, if pass results have been provided for all, the PASS result causes the process 134 to construct 188 fare components and exit 190. If at least one DEFER result was returned process 134 constructs 187 the fare components, stores 189 deferred record-2's in the faring component and exits 190. The routines 188, 189 and 190 thus correspond to the stored valid faring atom combination routine 138 (FIG. 7).

APPLICATION OF RECORD-3S

The information contained in record-3s varies by category. For example, category-5 record-3s, which specify advanced-purchase restrictions, contain fields that specify how long in advance of travel time a fare must be reserved, how long after a reservation a fare must be purchased, and so on. Category-4 record-3s, which specify flight-restrictions, contain fields that restrict flight-numbers, aircraft-type, airline, and whether flights are direct or non-stop. Every category has a different procedure for evaluating a faring-atom.

As discussed above the record-3 procedures that evaluate a faring-atom returns one of five values, and may return some other information such as discounts, penalties and surcharges. A value of PASS or FAIL can only be returned if that answer can be determined without examining any faring-atom other than the one the fare spans.

The ATPCO rules distinguish between fare-component and priceable-unit restrictions. Most restrictions on travel route, flight-numbers, and aircraft-type are fare-component-based, i.e., restrict only the flights in the faring-atom governed by the fare. On the other hand, minimum and maximum-stay restrictions are priceable-unit-based, i.e., apply to joint properties of all the faring-atoms within a priceable-unit. A minimum-stay requirement for a round-trip fare, for example, constrains the combination of outbound and return faring-atoms. Generally speaking, FC-based record-3s will be able to return either PASS or FAIL, while PU-based restrictions may need to be deferred. Deferring rules means checking them at a later point, however. This is a more computationally expensive process, because it must be done for combinations of faring-atoms within a priceable-unit, Wand the number ways faring-atoms can be combined to create priceable-units can be quite large, and grows quickly with the size of the priceable-unit. For this reason, whenever possible it is desirable for record-3 application not to result in a value of DEFER.

Many properties of faring-atoms can be bounded. For example, the earliest and latest departure-time within a faring-market, or within a slice, can be recorded, as well as the minimum and maximum number of connections within the faring-market and so forth. This information can often be used to evaluate priceable-unit restrictions at the fare-component level. A simple example of this is given below.

In this example, it is assumed that a certain fare's rules require at least a 3-day layover at the intermediate point of a round-trip priceable-unit, measured from the departure-times of the fare-components. The fare is used for the first half (outbound travel) of the priceable-unit, in the NW CHI_MSP faring-market in slice 1. If there are exactly two slices in the query, then the fare-component that covers return travel must come from the NW MSP_CHI faring-market in slice 2. Suppose that the following faring-atoms exist (TABLE 13). (The airport ORD is in the city Chicago.)

    TABLE 13
    Slice 1 NW CHI_MSP faring-atoms     Slice 2 NW MSP_faring-atoms
    ORD_MSP NW220 12APR97 13:00         MSP_ORD NW301 15APR97 19:00
    ORD_MSP NW220 13APR97 13:00         MSP_ORD NW577 16APR97 12:00
    ORD_MSP NW220 14APR97 13:00         MSP_ORD NW301 16APR97 19:00


In each faring-market, the earliest and latest departure-times can be calculated. In this case, the earliest departure-time in the slice-2 NW MSP_ORD market is 15APR97 19:00, and the latest departure-time is 16APR97 19:00.

When the minimum-stay requirement restriction is applied to the first faring-atom, its departure time of 12APR97 13:00 can be compared to the two outer bounds on return-travel departure-time, 15APR97 19:00 and 16APR97 19:00. In this case, the minimum-stay requirement is met even for the earliest possible return travel time, so the faring-atom unconditionally passes the restriction. Similarly, for the third faring-atom, since the restriction fails even for the latest possible return-travel departure-time, the faring-atom unconditionally fails the minimum-stay requirement. But for the second faring-atom, because the restriction fails for the earliest possible return time, but passes the latest possible return time, it is necessary to defer the application of the restriction.

GENERAL TIME BOUNDS

Many priceable-unit-based categories restrict times. Categories 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 14 are usually priceable-unit-based. Categories 3 and 14 usually restrict the departure-date of the first flight in a priceable-unit. Category 5 specifies how far in advance of travel fares must be purchased, and this is usually measured from the departure-date of the first flight in a priceable-unit. Categories 6 and 7 specify minimum and maximum-stays at stopovers within a priceable-unit.

In many cases these categories do not need to be deferred. This is especially true if, as in the above example, time-bounds are known for other faring-markets in the journey, and the range of faring-markets that might enter into a priceable-unit with the faring-atom in not great. It is a relatively simple matter to record for each faring-market the earliest and latest departure-date of any faring-atom within the faring-market. This can be done as faring-atoms are constructed. The problem remains of how to know what other faring-markets might participate in a priceable-unit with the faring-atom at hand.

CATEGORY-3

Pseudo code for an example of a procedure that implements record-3 category-3, "Seasonality Restrictions" is shown in TABLE 15. Each category-3 record-3 an example of which is shown in TABLE 14 specifies a permissible date range for travel, via a start-date and an end-date, either of which may be left blank. The default interpretation of category-3 is that these date restrictions apply to the departure-date of the first flight of the priceable-unit. This interpretation can be modified in two ways. First, if a certain field is set, then the category becomes fare-component based. In other words, the date restrictions apply to the departure-date of the first flight within the fare-component. Second, a geographic specification may be provided that alters the measurement of the departure-date. For example, the geographic specification may dictate that the relevant date is the departure-date of the first transoceanic flight.

Category-3s (TABLE 14) also includes a field that specifies whether the record-3 is available. If it is not, that is an indication that some information is missing and the record-3 should not be used for pricing a ticket. In this case, the record-3 application must return UNAVAILABLE. Finally, a category-3 may include a specification of a date range that the category-3 is valid for. If travel is outside of these dates, the record-3 application must return NO-MATCH.

            TABLE 14
            Category-3 field                   Example
            Earliest Permitted Travel Date     nil
            Latest Permitted Travel Date       19OCT97
            Fare-Component Based               false
            Geographic Specification           nil
            Earliest Record-3 Valid Date       15MAY88
            Latest Record-3 Valid Date         nil
            Available                          true


The logic of the procedure that processes the record-3 is as follows. If the record-3 is not available, UNAVAILABLE is returned. If travel is outside of the valid date-range of the record-3, NO-MATCH is returned. Then, processing branches depending on whether the record-3 is priceable-unit based (the default), or fare-component based. If fare-component based, and there is no geographic specification, the departure date of the faring-atom is compared to the date-range of the record-3, and either PASS or FAIL is returned. If a geographic specification is provided, then this is used to compute the relevant travel date, and the same procedure applies. If, on the other hand, the record-3 is priceable-unit based, then broad time-bounds checks are used. If there is no geographic specification, the earliest and latest possible priceable-unit departure-dates are retrieved and compared to the date-range of the record-3. If they both succeed, PASS is returned. If they both fail, FAIL is returned. Otherwise DEFER is returned. Finally, if the record-3 is priceable-unit based and includes a geographic specification, then DEFER is returned. The following pseudo-code implements the processing of record-3 category-3 in the case where the record-3 must be evaluated given only a single faring-atom from the priceable-unit.

    TABLE 15
    apply-record-3-FC-category-3(record-3, faring-atom, passenger-information,
     current-date)
        If (record-3.available = false)
            return(unavailable)
        Let date = departure-date(faring-atom)
        If ((record-3.earliest-record-3-valid-date < > nil and
     record-3.earliest-record-3-valid-date > date) or
                (record-3.latest-record-3-valid-date < > nil and
     record-3.latest-record-3-valid-date < date))
            return(no-match))
        If (record-3.fare-component-based = true)
            Let travel-date = date
            If (record-3.geographic-specification < > nil)
                travel-date =
     apply-geographic-specification(record-3.geographic-specification,
     faring-atom)
            If ((record-3.earliest-permitted-travel-date < > nil and
     record-3.earliest-permitted-travel-date > travel-date) or
                    (record-3.latest-permitted-travel-date < > nil and
     record-3.latest-permited-travel-date < travel-date))
                return(fail)
            Else
                return(pass)
        Else If (record-3.geographic-specification < > nil)
            return(defer)
        Else
            Let earliest-travel-date =
     earliest-priceable-unit-departure-date(faring-atom)
            Let latest-travel-date =
     latest-priceable-unit-departure-date(faring-atom)
            Let result = pass
            If (record-3.earliest-permitted-travel-date < > nil)
                If (record-3.earliest-permitted-travel-date >
     latest-travel-date)
                    result = fail
                Else If (record-3.earliest-permitted-travel-date <=
     earliest-travel-date)
                    result = defer
            If (record-3.latest-pemitted-travel-date < > nil)
                If (record-3.latest-permitted-travel-date <
     earliest-travel-date)
                    result = fail
                Else if (result < > fail and
     record-3.latest-permitted-travel-date >= latest-travel-date)
                    result = defer
            return(result)


There can be another version of this application procedure, as shown in TABLE 16 dedicated to the case where all of the faring-atoms within the priceable-unit are known. This procedure is simpler, because there is no need for time bound checks since all times are known exactly. This procedure is used to evaluate deferred record_3's (see TABLE 24).

    TABLE 16
    apply-record-3-PU-category-3(record-3, fares, faring-atoms,
     prime-faring-atom, passenger-information, current-date)
        If (record-3.available = false)
            return(unavailable)
        Let date = departure-date(prime-faring-atom)
        If ((record-3.earliest-record-3-valid-date < > nil and
     record-3.earliest-record-3-valid-date > date) or
                (record-3.latest-record-3-valid-date < > nil and
     record-3.latest-record-3-valid-date < date))
            return(no-match))
        Let travel-date = date
        If (record-3.fare-component-based = true)
            If (record-3.geographic-specification < > nil)
                travel-date =
     apply-geographic-specification(record-3.geographic-specification,
     prime-faring-atom)
        Else
            travel-date = departure-date(faring-atoms)
            If (record-3.geographic-specification < > nil)
                travel-date =
     apply-geographic-specification(record-3.geographic-specification,
     faring-atoms)
        If ((record-3.earliest-permitted-travel-date < > nil and
     record-3.earliest-permitted-travel-date > travel-date) or
            (record-3.latest-permitted-travel-date < > nil and
     record-3.latest-permited-travel-date < travel-date))
            return(fail)
        Else
            return(pass)


Referring now to FIG. 10, the process 90 for constructing priceable units is shown. The term "priceable unit" as used herein represents a fundamental unit at which many fare restrictions apply. For example, round trip fares often include minimum stay requirements and these can only be expressed when both an outbound and a return faring atom are combined. This occurs at the level of the priceable unit.

The process 90 of constructing priceable unit cores and pricing unit labels is organized as several nested procedures as follows. The process enumerates 200 a collection of faring markets. Collections of faring markets are enumerated 200 with each faring market from a different slice by an algorithm that depends on the type of a priceable unit that is constructed. For example, for a round trip priceable unit two faring markets are chosen on the same carrier and between the same cities but in opposite directions. The process 90 also enumerates collections of sets of faring components at 202. For each faring market in a collection of faring markets its faring components are partitioned into sets of fare components that have the same fare and the same combinability record-2s. Collections of these sets are enumerated with one set chosen from each faring market resulting in a collection of fares and associated collection of sets of fare components. At this juncture, any combinability record 2-s are evaluated to insure that the fares may be used together in a priceable unit.

The process 90 also enumerates 204 collections of fare components. Thus, given a collection of sets of fare components from 202, the process evaluates any deferred record 2-s on collections of fare components in the enumeration process 204. =These collections are constructed by selecting one fare component from each set. The process of evaluating deferred rules on collections of fare components outputs results in the form of a list of factored representations of priceable units. Thus, the output is a logical OR of logical ANDs of logical ORs of fare components.

From the factored representations produced in 204 the process produces priceable-unit-labels 206 and priceable-unit-cores 208 with some sharing occurring between these structures to ensure that the number of priceable-unit-cores and priceable-unit-labels is kept to a minimum.

The pseudo-code below (TABLE 17) summarizes enumerating collections of faring markets process 200. It takes as input a set of sets of faring-markets, containing one set per slice. These are the faring-markets generated by the calls to "create-divisions" (120 FIG. 6), as described above.

    TABLE 17
    create-priceable-units(faring-market-sets)
        Let number-of-slices = length(faring-market-sets)
        Let priceable-unit-labels = { }
        For slice-number1 from 1 to number-of-slices
        For faring-market1 in faring-market-sets[slice-number1]
            Let airline = faring-market1.airline
            // Create one-way priceable-units.
            priceable-unit-labels = create-PUs-in-markets1(faring-market1,
     priceable-unit-labels, one-way)
            For slice-number2 from slice-number1 + 1 to number-of-slices
            For faring-market2 in
     faring-markets-on-carrier(faring-market-sets[slice-number2], airline)
                // Create single and double open-jaws.
                priceable-unit-labels = create-PUs-in-markets2(faring-market1,
     faring-market2,
                                                  priceable-unit-labels,
     open-jaw)
                If (faring-market1.destination-city =
     faring-market2.origin-city)
                    // Create round-trips and circle-trips of size 2.
                    If (faring-market2.destination = faring-market1.origin)
                       priceable-unit-labels =
     create-PUs-in-markets2(faring-market1, faring-market2,
     priceable-unit-labels, round-trip)
                       priceable-unit-labels =
     create-PUs-in-markets2(faring-market1, faring-market2,
     priceable-unit-labels, circle-trip2)
                    For slice-number3 from slice-number2 + 1 to
     number-of-slices
                    For faring-market3 in
     faring-markets-on-carrier(faring-market-sets[slice-number3], airline)
                       If (faring-market2.destination-city =
     faring-market3.origin-city)
                           // Create circle-trips of size 3.
                           If (faring-market3.destination-city =
     faring-market1.origin-city)
                               priceable-unit-labels =
                                   create-PUs-in-markets3(faring-market1,
     faring-market2, faring-
                           //
                           // More iterations for circle-trips of lengths 4 and
     5.
                           //
                           . . .
        // Store priceable-unit-labels in faring-atoms.
        For priceable-unit-label in priceable-unit-labels
            For faring-atom-set in priceable-unit-label.faring-atom-sets
                For faring-atom in faring-atom-set
                    faring-atom.priceable-unit-labels += priceable-unit-label


This pseudo-code iterates over faring-markets in different slices, and passes faring markets to one of several possible create-PUs-in-markets procedures. These procedures vary by size of priceable-unit produced. The code ensures that the faring-markets are in the correct format for the type of priceable-unit produced, and that the priceable units are all on the same airline. This last restriction is motivated by efficiency since rarely do carriers permit priceable-units with fares from more than one airline.

Each call to create-PUs-in-markets returns an updated set of priceable-unit-labels. At the end of the procedure, these priceable-unit-labels are stored in their component faring-atoms.

There are many other combinability restrictions that limit the manner in which fare components can be combined into priceable continuous units. Even when searching for fares for a small number of itineraries, there can be a very large number of possible pricing units because of the large number of possible fares that can exist. It is preferred to represent these priceable units in a compact manner so as to minimize the computation involved in their construction.

The faring algorithm does not actually construct a data-structure for every priceable-unit. Instead, priceable-units are represented by a combination of two data structures: priceable-unit-cores (PU-cores) and priceable-unit-labels (PU-labels). PU-core data structures contain all the information associated with an individual priceable-unit except its faring-atoms. Thus, each PU-core contains a set of fares (one fare per fare-component in the priceable-unit) and any other information associated with those fares, such as discounts, surcharges and penalties. PU-label data structures compactly represent connections between faring-atoms and PU-cores.

At this stage of processing, a collection of fares has been fixed on, and for each fare there is a set of fare-components. Priceable-units are constructed by selecting one fare-component from each set and evaluating any deferred rules. The simplest manner that this could be accomplished would be to enumerate complete collections of fare-components and to apply the deferred record-2s from within these fare-components. Often, this method can be made more efficient in some cases by use of the function get-OR-AND-OR-form as will be described. That function takes a collection of sets of fare-components, evaluates any deferred rule-conditions, and returns a representation of the set of valid priceable-units. This representation is in OR-AND-OR form. In other words, it takes the form of a set of collections of sets of fare-components. This is very close to a set of priceable-unit-labels except that since the sets are of fare-components rather than faring-atoms, there are no PU-cores. The inner sets of fare-components returned by get-OR-AND-OR-form are guaranteed to have the same fares, surcharges, discounts, penalties and so on.

PU-cores and PU-labels are constructed from the output of get-OR-AND-OR. The pseudo-code below summarizes this procedure. It iterates over the inner AND-OR form, constructing PU-cores (if no identical PU-core already exists) and PU-labels (if no identical PU-label already exists). PU-labels are constructed by mapping from fare-components to faring-atoms. PU-cores are stored on PU-labels.

    TABLE 18
    create-PUs-from-fare-components(faring-markets, fares, fare-component-sets,
     existing-PU-labels,
                                   environmental-information)
        Let slice-numbers = { }
        Let PU-labels = existing-PU-labels
        Let PU-cores = { }
        For faring-market in faring-markets
            slice-numbers += faring-market.slice-number
        For AND-OR in get-OR-AND-OR(faring-markets, fare-component-sets,
     environmental-information)
            //
            // AND-OR is a collection of sets of fare-components, representing
     all the priceable-units
            // that can be constructed by choosing one fare-component from each
     set.
            //
            Let PU-core = nil
            Let surcharges = { }
            Let faring-atom-sets = { }
            For fare-component-set in AND-OR
                surcharges += first(fare-component-set).surcharges
                Let faring-atom-set = { }
                For fare-component in fare-component-set
                    faring-atom-set += fare-component.faring-atom
                faring-atom-sets += faring-atom-set
            // Find an existing PU-core with these fares and surcharges, or
     construct a new one.
            For test-PU-core in PU-cores
                If (test-PU-core.surcharges = surcharges)
                    PU-core = test-PU-core
            If (PU-core = nil)
                PU-core = new-PU-core( )
                PU-core.fares = fares
                PU-core.surcharges = surcharges
                PU-core.slice-numbers = slice-numbers
            // Find an existing PU-label with these faring-atoms, or construct
     a new one.
            Let PU-label = nil
            For test-PU-label in PU-labels
                If (test-PU-label.faring-atom-sets = faring-atom-sets)
                    PU-label = test-PU-label
            If (PU-label = nil)
                PU-label = new-PU-label( )
                PU-label.faring-atom-sets = faring-atom-sets
                PU-label.slice-numbers = slice-numbers
                PU-label.priceable-unit-cores = { }
                PU-labels += PU-label
            PU-label.priceable-unit-cores += PU-core
        return(PU-labels)


To understand the role PU-cores and PU-labels play in the faring algorithm, it may be helpful to look at an example, involving a round-trip journey between BOS and MSP. In this example, there are four outbound itineraries and four return itineraries, each of which is spanned by a single faring-market.

For both the outbound and return itineraries, there is a choice between two airlines, UA and NW. Both of these airlines offer two round-trip fares and one one-way fare. This situation is summarized in TABLE 19 below.

    TABLE 19
    Faring-market        Faraing-Atoms     Fares
    Slice 1: UA       BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA10O UA BOS-MSP RT "Q"
    BOS.fwdarw.MSP    BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA200 UA BOS-MSP RT "M14"
                                        UA BOS-MSP OW "Y"
    Slice 1: NW       BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW300 NW BOS-MSP RT "HE7"
    BOS.fwdarw.MSP    BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW400 NW BOS-MSP RT "Q7NR"
                                        NW BOS-MSP OW "F"
    Slice 2: UA       MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA111 same as for the outbound
    MSP.fwdarw.BOS    MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA222 UA faring-market
    Slice 2: NW       MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW333 same as for the outbound
    MSP.fwdarw.BOS    MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW444 NW faring-market


Assume that in each of the four faring-markets (i.e., BOS-MSP UA, BOS-MSP NW, MSP-BOS UA and MSP-BOS NW), fare-components have been constructed for every combination of faring-atom and fare. The fare-components built from the fare "NW BOS-MSP RT HE7" contain a deferred record-2 that is checked during priceable-unit construction. This record-2 does not permit outbound travel on flight "NW300" combined with return travel on flight "NW444." When constructing round-trip priceable-units, round-trip fares are combined with like round-trip fares. This situation permits the construction of a total of 23 priceable-units, as shown in TABLE 20.

    TABLE 20
    Priceable-Unit
    Number and    Slice-1 Faring-   Slice-1       Slice-2           Slice-2
    Type          Atom              Fare          Faring-Atom       Fare
    1 Round-trip  BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA100 RT "Q"        MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA111 RT
     "Q"
    2 Round-trip  BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA100 RT "M14"      MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA111 RT
     "M14"
    3 Round-trip  BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA100 RT "Q"        MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA222 RT
     "Q"
    4 Round-trip  BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA100 RT "M14"      MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA222 RT
     "M14"
    5 Round-trip  BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA200 RT "Q"        MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA111 RT
     "Q"
    6 Round-trip  BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA200 RT "M14"      MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA111 RT
     "M14"
    7 Round-trip  BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA200 RT "Q"        MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA222 RT
     "Q"
    8 Round-trip  BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA200 RT "M14"      MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA222 RT
     "M14"
    9 Round-trip  BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW300 RT "HE7NR"    MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW333 RT
     "HE7"
    10 Round-trip BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW300 RT "Q7NR"     MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW333 RT
     "Q7NR"
    11 Round-trip BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW300 RT "Q7NR"     MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW444 RT
     "Q7NR"
    12 Round-trip BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW400 RT "HE7NR"    MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW333 RT
     "HE7"
    13 Round-trip BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW400 RT "Q7NR"     MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW333 RT
     "Q7NR"
    14 Round-trip BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW400 RT "HE7NR"    MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW444 RT
     "HE7"
    15 One-way    BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW400 RT "Q7NR"     MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW444 RT
     "Q7NR"
    16 One-way    BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA100 OW "Y"
    17 One-way    BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA200 OW "Y"
    18 One-way    BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW300 OW "F"
    19 One-way    BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW400 OW "F"
    20 One-way                                    MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA111 OW "Y"
    21 One-way                                    MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA222 OW "Y"
    22 One-way                                    MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW333 OW "F"
    23 One-way                                    MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW444 OW "F"


Even in this example, the list of possible priceable-units is long (23 units). The reason that there are so many priceable-units is because production of priceable-units involves several choices (of fares and faring-atoms).

In TABLE 21 below, each entry represents a choice (an OR) of either faring-atoms or PU-cores. Each row represents a collection (an AND) of these choices. And finally, the entire table represents a choice (an OR) over these collections. Collectively, this OR-AND-OR table provides a compact representation of the 23 priceable-units.

    TABLE 21
     Label  Slice-1 Faring-Atom Slice-2 Faring-Atom Priceable-Unit-Core
    Number  Options           Options           Options
       1    BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA100 MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA111 1: RT "Q", 2: RT "Q"
            BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA200 MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA222 1: RT "M14", 2: RT "M14"
       2    BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW300 MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW333 1: RT "Q7NR", 2: RT
     "Q7NR"
            BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW400 MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW444
       3    BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW300 MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW333 1: RT "HE7", 2: RT "HE7"
       4    BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW400 MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW333 1: RT "HE7", 2: RT "HE7"
                              MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW444
       5    BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA100                   1: OW "Y"
            BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA200
       6    BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW300                   1: OW "F"
            BOS.fwdarw.MSP NW400
       7                      MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA111 2: OW "Y"
                              MSP.fwdarw.BOS UA222
       8                      MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW333 2: OW "F"
                              MSP.fwdarw.BOS NW444


Each row of TABLE 21 is a priceable-unit-label (PU-label), an object that factors a set of priceable-units into a collection of choices that have no further dependencies. There is a choice for very faring-atom involved in the priceable-unit, and a choice of a priceable-unit-core (PU-core). Each PU-core contains the same number of fares as there are faring-atom choices. In the case where there are no constraints between faring-atoms in different slices, PU-labels are a very compact representation of priceable-units. PU-label #1, for example, represents a total of eight different priceable-units. In cases where there are interactions between the faring-atoms in different slices, several PU-labels can be produced for a single PU-core. An example of several PU-labels is shown for the NW RT "HE7" fare represented by PU-labels numbers 3 and 4. These priceable-unit-labels and priceable-unit-cores are used by the linking procedure 94 (FIG. 4B) to associate itineraries from more than one slice to fares.

ENUMERATING COLLECTIONS OF SETS OF FARE-COMPONENTS

Each of the faring-markets that is passed to create-PUs-in-markets has a set of fare-components produced by applying fare rules procedure 88.

Referring now to FIG. 10A, enumerating collections of sets of fare-components 202 (described by pseudo-code below) partitions the fare-components in each faring-market into sets such that every fare-component in a set has the same fare and the same combinability record-2s. Fare combinability restrictions are specified in record-2s rule category 10. Any category-10 record-2s in a fare's rules is stored in the combinability-record-2 field in the fare-components.

Once fare-components are partitioned 202a into sets, collections of these sets are enumerated 202b, by selecting one set from each faring-market. For each fare there is a choice of fare-components. At this point, when the fares within a priceable-unit have been fixed, any category-10 record-2s that was deferred is applied 202c to determine whether the fares may be used together in a priceable-unit. This is accomplished by applying 202c each fare's combinability record-2 (if it has one) to every other fare within the priceable-unit.

The code below (TABLE 22) is written for two faring-markets within a priceable-unit, as would be the case for round-trips, open jaws and circle-trips of size two. Similar code would be used for priceable-units of other sizes.

    TABLE 22
    partition-fare-components-into-sets(faring-market)
        //
        // Partition fare-components into sets based on fare and combinability
     record-2.
        //
        Let fare-component-sets = { }
        For fare-component in faring-market.fare-components
            Let fare = fare-component.fare
            Let combinability-record-2 = fare-component.combinability-record-2
            Let previous-set = nil
            For test-set in fare-component-sets
                Let test-fare-component = first(test-set)
                If ((fare = test-fare-component.fare) and
                    (combinability-record-2 =
     test-fare-component.combinability-record-2))
                    previsous-set = test-set
            If (previous-set = nil)
                fare-component-sets += list(fare-component)
            Else
                previous-set += fare-component
        return(fare-component-sets)
    create-PUs-in-markets2(faring-market1, faring-market2, existing-PU-labels,
     PU-type, environmental-information)
        Let fare-component-sets1 =
     partition-fare-components-into-sets(faring-market1)
        Let fare-component-sets2 =
     partition-fare-components-into-sets(faring-market2.)
        Let PU-labels = existing-PU-labels
        For fare-components1 in fare-component-sets1
            For fare-components2 in fare-component-sets2
                Let fare1 = first(fare-components1).fare
                Let fare2 = first(fare-components2).fare
                Let combinability-record-2-1 =
     first(fare-components1).combinability-record-2
                Let combinability-record-2-2 =
     first(fare-components2).combinability-record-2
                // Check fare combinability requirements, by applying each
     fares's combinabilty
                // record-2 to all the other fares within the priceable-unit.
                If ((combinability-record-2-1 = nil or
                    apply-combinability-record-2(combinability-record-2-1,
     fare2, PU-type) = pass) and
                    (combinability-record-2-2 = nil or
                    apply-combinability-record-2(combinability-record-2-2,
     fare1, PU-type) = pass))
                    PU-labels =
     create-PUs-from-fare-components(list(faring-market1, faring-market2),
                                                  list(fare1, fare2),
                                                  list(fare-components1,
     fare-components2),
                                                  PU-labels,
     environmental-information)
        return(PU-labels)


The procedure create-PUs-in-markets2, after it has selected two fares and two sets of fare-components and verified fare combinability restrictions, calls the procedure 202d create-PUs-from-fare-components to evaluate deferred rules and construct priceable-unit-labels and priceable-unit-cores.

CONSTRUCTING PRICEABLE-UNITS

At this stage of processing, a collection of fares is determined, and for each fare there is a set of fare-components. Priceable-units are constructed by selecting one fare-component from each set and evaluating any deferred rules.

Referring now to FIG. 11, a process 204 to enumerate collection of fare components is shown. The process 204 can enumerate 212 a collection of sets of fare-components, enumerate 214 fare components by selecting one component from each set, apply or evaluate 216 any deferred rule-conditions, and return a compact representation 218 of the set of valid priceable-units. A preferred technique to accomplish this uses a "GET_OR_AND_OR" operation described below TABLES 24, 26 and 27.

The representation process 218 produces an OR-AND-OR representation of the priceable units. The process 218 produces a set of collections of sets of fare-components similar to that in FIG. 20, that will later be transformed into priceable-unit-labels and priceable-unit-cores by processes 206 and 208 described further in TABLE 22. The inner sets of fare-components returned by get-OR-AND-OR-form have the same fares, surcharges, discounts, penalties and so on.

The procedure 218 get-OR-AND-OR, takes a collection of fare-component sets and enumerate collections of fare-components by selecting one from each set. It evaluates any deferred record-2s, and constructs a set of valid priceable-units. This set is transformed into a factored OR-AND-OR form, and returned.

Referring back to FIG. 10, PU-cores and PU-labels are constructed 210 at process 206 and 208 from the output of get-OR-AND-OR process 204. The pseudo-code below and FIGS. 12-13 summarizes this procedure. Construction 210 iterates over the inner AND-OR form, producing PU-cores 206 (if no identical PU-core already exists) and PU-labels 208 (if no identical PU-label already exists). PU-labels are produced by mapping fare-components to faring-atoms and PU-cores are stored on PU-labels.

FACTORING PRICEABLE-UNITS

Referring now to FIGS. 12-15, the get-OR-AND-OR process 218 to construct the priceable unit representation is shown and is also described in detail below through pseudo-code. As shown in FIG. 12 and in pseudo-code in TABLE 23 below, three different high-level procedures are used, depending on whether priceable-units are one 220, two 222, or three or more 224 fare-components.

    TABLE 23
    get-OR-AND-OR(faring-markets, fare-component-sets,
     environmental-information)
        Let size = length(faring-markets)
        If (size = 1)
            return(get-OR-AND-OR-1(faring-markets, fare-component-sets,
     environmental-information)
        Else if (size = 2)
            return(get-OR-AND-OR-2(faring-markets, fare-component-sets,
     environmental-information)
        Else
            return(get-OR-AND-OR-3+(faring-markets, fare-component-sets,
     environmental-information)


Two auxiliary functions are used in the get-OR-AND-OR procedures. The first, apply-deferred-record-2s 218a, takes a collection of fare-components (a potential priceable-unit) and evaluates any deferred record-2s they might have. In contrast to the initial stage of rule application, here all the fares and faring-atoms within the priceable-unit are known. It returns either PASS, FAIL or DEFER (in this case, DEFER means that the record-2s cannot be evaluated even at the priceable-unit level: they involve journey-level constraints). In such a case the priceable-unit is not produced (TABLE 24.)

    TABLE 24
    apply-deferred-record-2s(fare-components, environmental-information)
        Let faring-atoms = { }
        Let fares = { }
        For fare-component in fare-components
            fares += fare-component.fare
            faring-atoms += fare-component.faring-atom
        For fare-component in fare-components
            For record-2 in fare-component.deferred-record-2s
                If (apply-record-2-PU(record-2, fares, faring-atoms,
                           fare-component.faring-atom,
                           environmental-information)
                       < > pass
                  return(fail)
        return(pass)


The second auxiliary function, partition-fare-components-by-surcharges 218b, (TABLE 25) takes a set of fare-components and partitions it into subsets that have the same secondary characteristics: the same surcharges, discounts, penalties, etc.

    TABLE 25
    partition-fare-components-by-surcharges(fare-components)
    Let partitions = { }
    For fare-component in fare-components
        Let found-partition = false
        Let surcharges = fare-component.surcharges
        For partition in partitions
            If (first(partition).surcharges = surcharges)
                found-partition = true
                partition += fare-component
        If (found-partition = false)
            partitions += list(fare-component)
    return(partitions)


FACTORING PRICEABLE-UNITS OF SIZE ONE

Referring now to FIG. 13, the get-OR-AND-OR function 230 for priceable-unit of one fare-component (one-way priceable-units) is shown. It is passed only a single fare-component set 232, and applies 216 deferred record-2s. The final set of valid fare-components is partitioned 234 into sets with the same surcharges, penalties, and discounts. The partitioned sets 236 are paced into the proper OR-AND-OR representation 238 to represent them in a compact fort.

The procedure PU-1 for a priceable unit of size 1 is set out in TABLE 26.

    TABLE 26
    get-OR-AND-OR-1 (faring-markets, fare-component-sets,
    environmental-information)
        Let valid-fare-components { }
        For fare-component in first(fare-component-sets)
            If (apply-deferred-record-2s(list(fare-component),
            environmental-information)
                valid-fare-components += fare-component
        Let OR-AND-OR = { }
        For OR in partition-fare-components-by-surcharges(valid-fare-
        components)
            Let AND-OR = list(OR)
            OR-AND-OR += AND-OR
        return(OR-AND-OR)


FACTORING PRICEABLE-UNITS OF SIZE TWO

Referring to FIG. 14, two-component priceable-units include round-trips and two-component component open-jews and circle-trips. They are common and should be computed efficiently and represented compactly. The function get-OR-AND-OR-2240 efficiently computes and represents two component priceable units (242-246). Combinations of fare-components are not enumerated unless it is necessary for evaluation of deferred record-2s. The resulting set of priceable-units is also represented in a compact OR-AND-OR form.

Pseudo code for the get-OR-AND-OR-2 procedure is set forth below (TABLE 27). The process 240 enumerates priceable units 248 by selecting one fare component from each set. The get-OR-AND-OR-2 process 240 tests deferred record-2s and, if the test is passed, adds the resulting valid priceable unit to the OR-AND-OR representation.

    TABLE 27
    get-OR-AND-OR-2(faring-markets, fare-component-sets,
     environmental-information)
        Let OR-AND-OR = { }
        Subroutine find-AND-OR(surcharges1, fare-component-set2)
            //
            // Return any AND-OR from OR-AND-OR that has fare-components with
     surcharges surcharges1 in its
            // first set of fare-components, and has fare-component-set2 as its
     second set of fare-components.
            //
            For AND-OR in OR-AND-OR
                If (first(first(AND-OR)).surcharges = surcharges1 and
     second(AND-OR) = fare-component-set2)
                    return(AND-OR)
            return(nil)
        Subroutine add-uniform-cross-product(fare-component-set1,
     fare-component-set2)
            //
            // Add the priceable-units that can be had by selecting one element
     from fare-component-set1 and
            // one element from fare-component-set2. Both sets are uniform with
     respect to surcharges.
            //
            Let AND-OR = find-AND-OR(first(fare-component-set1).surcharges,
     fare-component-set2)
            If (AND-OR = nil)
                OR-AND-OR += list(fare-component-set1, fare-component-set2)
            Else
                first(AND-OR) = append(first(AND-OR), fare-component-set1)
        Subroutine add-cross-product(fare-component-set1, fare-component-set2)
            //
            // Add the priceable-units that can be had by selecting one element
     from fare-component-set1 and
            // one element from fare-component-set2.
            //
            Let uniform-fare-component-sets1 =
     partition-fare-components-by-surcharges(fare-component-set1)
            Let uniform-fare-component-sets2 =
     partition-fare-components-by-surcharges(fare-component-set2)
            For uniform-fare-component-set1 in uniform-fare-component-sets1
                For uniform-fare-component-set2 in uniform-fare-component-sets2
                    add-uniform-cross-product(uniform-fare-component-set1,
     uniform-fare-component-set2)
        Subroutine enumerate-priceable-units(fare-component-set1,
     fare-component-set2)
            //
            // Enumerate priceable-units by selecting one fare-component from
     each set. Test deferred record-2s,
            // and if they pass, add the resulting priceable-unit to the
     OR-AND-OR representation.
            //
            For fare-component1 in fare-component-set1
                Let valid-fare-components2 = { }
                For fare-component2 in fare-component-set2
                    If (apply-deferred-record-2s(list(fare-component1,
     fare-component2), environmental-information))
                       valid-fare-components2 += fare-component2
                If (valid-fare-component2 < > { })
                    add-cross-product(list(fare-component1),
     valid-fare-components2)
        Let fare-component-set1-with-rules = { }
        Let fare-component-set1-without-rules = { }
        Let fare-component-set2-with-rules = { }
        Let fare-component-set2-without-rules = { }
    For fare-component1 in first (fare-component-sets)
                If (fare-component1.deferred-record-2s = nil)
                       fare-component-set1-without-rules += fare-component1
                Else
                       fare-component-set1-with-rules += fare-component1
        For fare-component2 in second(fare-component-sets)
                If (fare-component2.deferred-record-2s = nil)
                       fare-component-set2-without-rules += fare-component2
                Else
                       fare-component-set2-with-rules += fare-component2
        // There is no need to enumerate combinations of fare-components that
     have no deferred rules.
        add-cross-product(fare-component-set1-without-rules,
     fare-component-set2-without-rules)
        // For the remainder of fare-components, though, explicit enumeration
     is necessary.
        enumerate-priceable-units(fare-component-set1-with-rules,
     fare-component-set2-wihtout-rules)
        enumerate-priceable-units(fare-component-set1,
     fare-component-set2-with-rules)
        return(OR-AND-OR)


FACTORING PRICEABLE-UNITS OF SIZE THREE OR GREATER

Properly enumerating all possible combinations of fare-components for priceable-units of size three or greater is computationally burdensome, though possible.

Referring now to FIG. 15, a preferred procedure 260 finds a subset of possible priceable-units. In particular, it extracts 262 those fare-components that have no deferred record-2s, and build priceable-units from them. Since there are no deferred record-2s, there are no intra-priceable-unit constraints and it is possible to construct a factored representation.

Priceable-units of size three or greater tend to have more deferred record-2s. This may somewhat reduce the effectiveness of the extracting procedure 262. The prevalence of deferred record-2s rules occurs because in complicated journeys, time-bounds used in an initial rule application tend to be broadly specified.

At this stage of processing time bound ranges can be tightened, because the faring-markets that comprise the priceable-unit are known. Therefore, deferred record-2s can be reapplied 264 to faring-atoms in the same manner that they are applied in the initial rule application. If all deferred record-2s pass, then the faring-atom is retained 266. If a record-2 fails or is deferred, the faring-atom is discarded. The function reevaluate-deferred-record-2s (TABLE 28) performs this filtering. It takes a set of faring-markets and a fare-component set, and sets time-bounds based on the faring-markets. It reevaluates deferred record-2s for each fare-component in the set, and returns the set of fare-components that have all their record-2s pass.

    TABLE 28
    reevaluate-deferred-record-2s(faring-markets, fare-component-set,
     environmental-information)
        set-time-bounds(faring-markets)
        Let fare-components = { }
        For fare-component in fare-component-set
            Let result = pass
            Let deferred-record-2s = { }
            For record-2 in fare-component.deferred-record-2s
                Let record-2-result, record-2-surcharges =
                    apply-record-2-FC(record-2, fare-component.faring-atom,
     environmental-information)
                If (record-2-result = pass)
                    fare-component.surcharges += record-2-surcharges
                Else if (record-2-result = defer)
                    deferred-record-2s += record-2
                Else
                    result = fail
            If (result = pass)
                fare-component.deferred-record-2s = deferred-record-2s
                fare-components += fare-component
        return(fare-components)


The procedure 268 that factors priceable-units of size three or greater, get-OR-AND-OR-3+, (TABLE 29) applies reevaluate-deferred-record-2s to each set of fare-components, to filter them. It then partitions the resulting sets based on surcharges, and takes the cross-product of these sets to construct the proper OR-AND-OR representation. The procedure for the last case does not return all possible valid priceable-units.

    TABLE 29
    get-OR-AND-OR-3+(faring-markets, fare-component-sets,
     enviromental-information)
        Let OR-AND-OR = {0}
        For fare-component-set in fare-component-sets
            Let valid-fare-components =
     reevaluate-deferred-record-2s(faring-markets, fare-component-set,
     environmental-information)
            Let new-OR-AND-OR = { }
            For OR in
     partition-fare-components-by-surcharges(valid-fare-components)
                For previous-AND-OR in OR-AND-OR
                    new-OR-AND-OR += postpend(previous-AND-OR, OR)
            OR-AND-OR = new-OR-AND-OR
        return(OR-AND-OR)


LINKING ITINERARIES

Priceable-units-labels associate faring-atoms from one or more slices with fares. In the pricing-graph representation 38' set of pricing solutions, sets of priceable-unit-labels are used to link itineraries from different slices.

The pricing graph representation 38' of pricing-solutions 38 is constructed by selecting a set of priceable-unit-labels. Each of these PU-labels may or may not project onto a given slice of a journey. For example, in a round-trip journey a round-trip priceable-unit-label will project onto both slices, while a one-way priceable-unit-label will project onto only one slice of the journey. Once a set of PU-labels has been chosen, in any slice any itinerary may be chosen so long as it has some division that has faring-atoms containing exactly the PU-labels that project onto that slice. The choice of itinerary is otherwise independent of choices made in other slices.

A set of PU-labels encodes all constraints that exist between itineraries in different slices. This leads to a relatively simple procedure for constructing the pricing-graph. Itineraries within each slice are indexed by the sets of multi-slice PU-labels they can be associated with. These indices are called slice-label-sets, and act as a logical OR over itineraries. The slice-label-sets from different slices are linked by matching PU-labels.

Single-slice (one-way) priceable-unit-labels are treated somewhat differently than multi-slice priceable-unit-labels to enhance efficiency. In particular, there is no need to include single-slice PU-labels in slice-label-sets, because they do not need to be matched across slices. Rather, single-slice PU-labels are attached closely to itineraries in the pricing-graph. That is, within a slice-label-set, each itinerary is associated with a compact representation of the set of single-slice PU-labels that can be used with the itinerary, given that the multi-slice PU-labels found within the slice-label-set are also used.

The linking process constructs slice-label-sets with each slice-label-set being a set of multi-slice PU-labels and associated itinerary divisions. Slice-label-sets group itineraries by multi-slice PU-labels. Each division has associated with it a set of single-slice PU-labels.

In the pricing-graph, slice-label-sets act as ORs over itineraries. Multi-slice PU-labels encapsulate information concerning the itinerary to permit the linking process to operate over slice-label-sets rather than individual itineraries. This approval is computationally efficient and results in small pricing-graphs. In each slice-label-set, each itinerary (division) is paired with a set of single-slice PU-labels. During construction of the pricing graph, each slice-label-set is transformed into an OR over ANDs of itineraries and sets of PU-labels.

The linking process 282 also connects or links slice-label-sets from different slices, as shown in FIG. 16. Connecting is accomplished by starting from the first slice and working forward to the last slice. Intermediate results are summarized in open-label-sets. Each open-label-set is a set of (multi-slice) PU-labels that project onto slices that have not been processed, along with a set of backward-links that are each a pair of a slice-label-set and all open-label-set from the previous slice. Processing starts retrieving slice 1 and matching with a single, empty slice-0 open-label-set 288. Slice-label-sets from slice 1 are "added" 290 to this open-label-set, resulting in new slice-1 open-label-sets. Then slice-label-sets from slice-2 arc added to these, resulting in slice-2 open-label-sets, and so on. As this process continues, PU-labels that are complete 292 (i.e., that do not project to subsequent slices) arc removed 293 from open-label-sets. The next slice is retrieved by incrementing, 294. If any pricing-solutions exist the process will terminate 297 in a single, empty, last-slice open-label-set. At that point, the backward-links serve as the top-level representation of the pricing graph.

Set forth below is an example of the linking process. This example assumes a three-slice circle-trip journey, from BOS to MSP to MIA. In the following discussion, PU-labels are identified by a unique letter followed by a sequence of digits that indicate which slices the PU-label projects onto. For example, A-23 is a two-component PU-label that projects onto the second and third slices. Each itinerary may have several divisions, and each division may have many possible collections of PU-labels (with each collection built by selecting one PU-label per faring-atom in the division).

At this stage of processing in the faring process 18 divisions have been produced for each itinerary, each division comprising a set of faring-atoms. PU-labels have been constructed, and stored in each faring-atom. From this information it is possible to enumerate for every division, possible collections of PU-labels, by selecting one for each faring-atom. TABLE 30 below summarizes the result of this procedure, for the example journey. Each possible collection of PU-labels is partitioned into those that project onto only one slice (one-way priceable-units) and those that project onto more than one-slice. In this table, divisions are encoded using the endpoints of faring-atoms, to save space, and each itinerary and division are given numeric labels so that they can be referenced in the rest of the discussion.

    TABLE 30
     Multi-Slice Single-Slice
    Slice Itinerary                           Division
     PU-Labels   PU-Labels
      1   1.1 BOS.fwdarw.MSP UA123            1.1.1 BOS.fwdarw.MSP
     {A-123}     { }
                                                                         {F-13}
          { }
                                                                         { }
          {I-1}
      1   1.2 BOS.fwdarw.CHI NW315 CHI_MSP UA739 1.2.1 BOS.fwdarw.MSP;
     CHI.fwdarw.MSP {B-13 C-12} { }
                                                                         {B-13}
          {H-1}
                                                                         {C-12}
          {G-1}
                                                                         { }
          {G-1 H-1}
      1   1.3 BOS.fwdarw.MSP CO450            1.3.1 BOS.fwdarw.MSP       { }
          {J-1}
      2   2.1 MSP.fwdarw.MIA UA901            2.1.1 MSP.fwdarw.MIA
     {A-123}     { }
                                                                         { }
          {K-2}
      2   2.2 MSP-CHI UA623 CHI_MIA UA841     2.2.1 MSP.fwdarw.MIA
     {A-123}     { }
                                                                         { }
          {K-2}
                                              2.2.2 MSP-CHI; CHI.fwdarw.MIA
     {C-12 D-23} { }
                                                                         {C-12}
          {M-2}
                                                                         {D-23}
          {L-2}
                                                                         { }
          {L-2 M-2}
      2   2.3 MSP.fwdarw.MIA FL207            2.3.1 MSP.fwdarw.MIA       {E-23}
          { }
      3   3.1 MIA.fwdarw.BOS UA112            3.1.1 MIA.fwdarw.BOS
     {A-123}     { }
      3   3.2 MIA.fwdarw.CHI UA487 CHI.fwdarw.BOS NW316 3.2.1 MIA.fwdarw.CHI;
     CHI.fwdarw.BOS {D-23 B-13} { }
                                                                         {D-23}
          {O-3}
                                                                         {B-13}
          {N-3}
                                                                         { }
          {N-3 O-3}
      3   3.3 MIA.fwdarw.MSP FL208 MSP-BOS UA558 3.3.1 MIA.fwdarw.MSP; MSP-BOS
     {E23 F13}   { }
                                                                         {E23}
          {P-3}


As TABLE 30 above shows, there are three different itineraries for each slice. Each itinerary is split into one or two divisions of faring-atoms. Each division has one or several possible PU-label combinations. For example, for the second division of the second slice-2 itinerary (2.2.2) there are four different PU-label sets. This is because the division has two faring-atoms, and each faring-atom has two possible PU-labels. For reference, the table below lists each hypothetical PU-label along with its faring-markets.

    TABLE 31
    Name                   Faring.fwdarw.Markets                Comment
    A-123   1: UA BOS.fwdarw.MSP 2: UA MSP.fwdarw.MIA 3: UA MIA.fwdarw.BOS
     3-Component Circle Trip
    B-13    1: NW BOS.fwdarw.CHI                   3: NW CHI.fwdarw.BOS Round
     Trip
    C-12    1: UA CHI.fwdarw.MSP 2: UA CHI.fwdarw.MSP                   Round
     Trip
    D-23                      2: UA CHI.fwdarw.MIA 3: UA MIA.fwdarw.CHI Round
     Trip
    E-23                      2: FL MSP.fwdarw.MIA 3: FL MIA.fwdarw.MSP Round
     Trip
    F-13    1: UA BOS.fwdarw.MSP                   3: UA MSP.fwdarw.BOS Round
     Trip
    G-1     1: NW BOS_CHI                                         One Way
    H-1     1: UA CHI.fwdarw.MSP                                     One Way
    I-1     1: UA BOS.fwdarw.MSP                                     One Way
    J-1     1: CO BOS.fwdarw.MSP                                     One Way
    K-2                       2: UA MSP.fwdarw.MIA                   One Way
    L-2                       2: UA MSP.fwdarw.CHI                   One Way
    M-2                       2: UA CHI.fwdarw.MIA                   One Way
    N-3                                         3: UA MIA.fwdarw.CHI One Way
    O-3                                         3: NW CHI.fwdarw.BOS One Way
    P-3                                         3: UA MSP.fwdarw.BOS One Way


TABLE 32 below lists slice-label-sets that are produced in this example, and as with itineraries and itinerary divisions, the faring process assigns each a numerical label. Many itineraries may be grouped into the same slice-label-set. For example, there are three different itinerary divisions that are grouped into slice-label-set 1.3. TABLE 30 lists, for each slice-label-set, its backward-projection. This is the set of multi-slice PU-labels that project onto previous slices.

    TABLE 32
          Multi-Slice     Itin-           Single-Slice Backward
    Slice PU-Labels       erary Division  PU-Labels   Projection
      1   1.1 {A-123}      1.1    1.1.1   { }         { }
      1   1.2 {F-13}       1.1    1.1.1   { }         { }
      1   1.3 { }          1.1    1.1.1   {I-1}       { }
                           1.2    1.2.1   {G-1 H-1}
                           1.3    1.3.1   {J-1}
      1   1.4 {B-13 C-12}  1.2    1.2.1   { }         { }
      1   1.5 {B-13}       1.2    1.2.1   {H-1}       { }
      1   1.6 {C-12}       1.2    1.2.1   {G-1}       { }
      2   2.1 {A-123}      2.1    2.1.1   { }         {A-123}
                           2.2    2.2.1   { }
      2   2.2 { }          2.1    2.1.1   {K-2 }      { }
                           2.2    2.2.2   {L-2 M-2}
      2   2.3 {C-12 D-23}  2.2    2.2.2   { }         {C-12}
      2   2.4 {C-12}       2.2    2.2.2   {M-2}       {C-12}
      2   2.5 {D-23}       2.2    2.2.2   {L-2}       { }
      2   2.6 {E-23}       2.3    2.3.1   { }         { }
      3   3.1 {A-123}      3.1    3.1.1   { }         {A-123}
      3   3.2 {D-23 B-13}  3.2    3.2.1   { }         {D-23 B-13}
      3   3.3 {D-23}       3.2    3.2.1   {O-3}       {D-23}
      3   3.4 {B-13}       3.2    3.2.1   {N-3}       {B-13}
      3   3.5 { }          3.2    3.2.1   {N-3 O-3}   { }
      3   3.6 {E23 F13}    3.3    3.3.1   { }         {E-23 F-13}
      3   3.7 {E23}        3.3    3.3.1   {P-3}       {E-23}


Shown in the TABLE 33 below are lists for each slice of the open-label-sets, as well as their backward-links and their next-slice-projection. This last field is the subset of open PU-labels that project onto the subsequent slice. It is equal to the backward-projection of any slice-label-set that is part of a backward-link to the open-label-set.

    TABLE 33
                            Next-Slice    Backward-Link     Backward-Link
    Slice Open-Label-Set    Projection    Slice-Label-Set   Open-Label-Set
      0   0.1 { }           { }
      1   1.1 {A-123}       {A-123}       1.1 {A-123}       0.1 { }
      1   1.2 {F-13}        { }           1.2 {F-13}        0.1 { }
      1   1.3 { }           { }           1.3 { }           0.1 { }
      1   1.4 {B-13 C-12}   {C-12}        1.4 {B-13 C-12}   0.1 { }
      1   1.5 {B-13}        { }           1.5 {B-13}        0.1 { }
      1   1.6 {C-12}        {C-12}        1.6 {C-12}        0.1 { }
      2   2.1 {A-123}       {A-123}       2.1 {A-123}       1.1 {A-123}
      2   2.2 { }           { }           2.2 { }           1.1 { }
      2   2.3 {D-23}        {D-23}        2.3 {C-12 D-23}   1.6 {C-12}
                                          2.5 {D-23}        1.3 { }
      2   2.4 {E-23}        {E-23}        2.6 {E-23}        1.3 { }
      2   2.5 {D-23 F-13}   {D-23 F-13}   2.5 {D-23}        1.2 {F-13}
      2   2.6 {E-23 F-13}   {E-23 F-13}   2.6 {E-23}        1.2 {F-13}
      2   2.7 {F-13}        {F-13}        2.2 { }           1.2 {F-13}
      2   2.8 {D-23 B-13}   {D-23 B-13}   2.3 {C-12 D-23}   1.4 {B-13 C-12}
                                          2.5 {D-23}        1.5 {B-13}
      2   2.9 {E-23 B-13}   {E-23 B-13}   2.6 {E-23}        1.5 {B-13}
      2   2.10 {B-13}       {B-13}        2.4 {C-12}        1.4 {B-13 C-12}
                                          2.2 { }           1.5 {B-13}
      3   3.1 { }           { }           3.1 {A-123}       2.1 {A-123}
                                          3.5 { }           2.2 { }
                                          3.3 {D-23}        2.3 {D-23}
                                          3.7 {E-23}        2.4 {E-23}
                                          3.6 {E-23 F-13}   2.6 {E-23 F-13}
                                          3.2 {D-23 B-13}   2.8 {D-23 B-13}
                                          3.4 {B-13}        2.10 {B-13}


Each open-label-set contains a set of PU-labels that are still "open", i.e., project onto a subsequent slice. For example, the PU-label C-12 does not appear in open-label-sets from slice 2 or slice 3. In the pricing-graph, each open-label-set will be translated into an OR over the backward-links. The backward-links represent paths that lead to the open-label-set. Each is a pair (an AND) of a slice-label-set with an open-label-set from the previous slice. Because TABLE 33 is consistent, the backward-projection of any slice-label-set in a link is equal to the next-slice-projection of the open-label-set in the link. Furthermore, the PU-labels in each open-label-set can be constructed by selecting any backward-link, taking the union of the PU-labels in the link's open-label-set and slice-label-set, and removing any PU-labels that do not project forward.

If there is an empty open-label-set for the last slice, then pricing-solutions exist. This open-label-set provides the "root" of the pricing-graph, a node that has a child for every link. Each of these links will become an AND of the slice-label-set and the previous open-label-set. In this way open-label-sets and slice-label-sets are used to produce the pricing-graph.

FARE-COMBINABILITY RESTRICTIONS

The linking procedure described above assumes that there are no restrictions on the mixing of priceable-unit-labels other than those imposed by itineraries. This is not always the case. For example, although the various create-PUs-in-markets procedures described above apply fare-combinability checks, those checks include only restrictions on the fares that may coexist within a priceable-unit. These checks include ATPCO categories 101, 102 and 103, but not category 104. The category-10 record-2s that are stored on fare-components may also include so called "end-on-end" fare-combinability restrictions. These restrictions constrain the fares within other priceable-units. One example of such an end-on-end fare-combinability constraint is that all fares within an entire journey must be published by the same airline as the fare with the constraint.

Cross-priceable-unit constraints such as end-on-end fare-combinability restrictions complicate the process of finding valid fares for itineraries. In general cross-priceable unit constrains can be very expensive to evaluate. These constraints can often be efficiently evaluated during the process that links the set of valid fares to the sets of flights to form a pricing solution. Below, an efficient approach for evaluating many common end-on-end fare-combinability restrictions is described.

First, priceable-unit-labels are constructed in such a manner that all priceable-unit-cores within them share the same end-on-end combinability restrictions. This is reflected in the procedure partition-fare-components-into-sets, described previously. During the linking process each priceable-unit-label end-on-end fare-combinability restriction is applied to the fares in other priceable-unit-labels. This happens during the initial stage of the linking process, in the execution of create-slice-label-sets. Create-slice-label-sets iterates over itinerary divisions, and for each division, iterates in an inner loop over covering sets of priceable-unit-labels. In this inner loop an end-to-end fare-combinability restriction attached to one priceable-unit-label in the set can be applied to fares in other priceable-unit-labels within the set. If the restriction fails, the set of priceable-unit-labels is rejected.

For this procedure it is desirable that every priceable-unit-label containing an end-on-end restriction projects onto all the slices that the restriction needs to be checked against. Some restrictions may only need to be checked against fares adjacent to the fare-component or priceable-unit containing the restriction, while others may need to be applied to every other priceable-unit in the entire journey. Hence, if a priceable-unit-label projects onto every slice, then its end-on-end restrictions can be applied to every other priceable-unit-label in a potential pricing-solution.

But, if a priceable-unit-label projects onto only one slice (as a one-way priceable-unit-label would) while its restriction must be applied to priceable-units from several slices, then the restriction cannot be applied using the method described here. In such a case there are several options available. One is to reject the set of priceable-unit-labels currently under consideration. Another is to accept it, but mark it as potentially requiring that any solution containing it must be split into several journeys (a "split ticket")

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