Price Buckets and Fare Rules

Operators looking to adjust their prices for schedules over a specific date range based on different occupancy levels can take advantage of the Betterez Price Buckets feature. This allows you to define differentiated pricing based on the vehicle's occupancy percentage, for both regular and promotional fares.

In this example, we will configure a special price for the first passenger and a different price for subsequent passengers.

Setting Up Price Buckets

To begin, navigate to Administration → Sales Inventory, then click on the Routes section.

Select the desired route and, in the panel on the right, click the Price Buckets button.

Next, click +Add new to create a new Price Bucket.

In the Price bucket information section, fill in the following fields:

• Name: A label identifying the occupancy tier (e.g., Low occupancy, Medium occupancy, High occupancy).
• From % of capacity: The minimum occupancy percentage at which this bucket applies. This value is inclusive.
• To % of capacity: The upper occupancy threshold for this bucket. This value is exclusive, meaning the bucket only applies to occupancy percentages lower than this value.

Then click Save.

ℹ️ Note: Occupancy ranges use an inclusive From value and an exclusive To value. This means that a bucket configured from 11% to 20% applies to occupancy percentages greater than or equal to 11% and lower than 20%, so an occupancy of exactly 20% is not included. To avoid gaps between Price Buckets, it is recommended that the From value of the next bucket match the To value of the previous bucket.

Continue adding buckets until all desired occupancy intervals are covered, making sure there are no unintended gaps between consecutive ranges.

Setting Up Fare Rules

Once your Price Buckets are configured, you need to define Fare Rules to specify the pricing behavior for each occupancy interval.

Navigate back to the route and, in the panel on the right, click the Fare Rules button.

Click +Add new to create a new Fare Rule.

Then, fill in the following fields:

• Name: An identifying name for the rule.
• Start date / End date: The date range during which the rule applies.
• Schedules: The schedule or schedules affected by this rule. After selecting each one, click the + button to add it to the list.
• Bucket values: A table listing all configured Price Buckets. For each bucket, enter a Value and select one of the following options from the Value Type dropdown:
  • Percentage: Increases or decreases the base price by the specified percentage.
  • Currency: Increases or decreases the base price by the specified fixed amount.
  • Override: Replaces the base price entirely with the specified value.

Once all Price Bucket scenarios are covered, click Save.

ℹ️ Note: When processing a sale, the system determines the applicable Price Bucket based on the resulting occupancy after including the seats in the current purchase. For example, if the bus has 5 occupied seats and 1 additional ticket is being sold, the occupancy considered will be 6 seats. The system then calculates the corresponding occupancy percentage based on the vehicle capacity and applies the Price Bucket whose configured range includes that percentage.

Example Scenarios

Example 1 A vehicle with a capacity of 20 seats currently has 2 seats sold. When processing a sale for 1 additional ticket, the occupancy considered is 3 seats (2 sold + 1 in progress), which equals 15% of total capacity. This falls within the first Price Bucket, which applies a $4 USD discount. If the base price in the Fare Table is $40 USD, the final sale price will be $36 USD.

Example 2 A vehicle with a capacity of 30 seats currently has 8 seats sold. When processing a sale for 1 additional ticket, the occupancy considered is 9 seats (8 sold + 1 in progress), which equals 30% of total capacity. This falls within the second Price Bucket, which applies a 5% discount. If the base price in the Fare Table is $80 USD, the final sale price will be $76 USD ($80 − $4).

ℹ️ Note: If the calculated occupancy percentage does not fall within any configured Price Bucket, no Price Bucket adjustment will be applied and the price defined in the Fare Table will remain unchanged.

⚠️ Important: The Price Buckets configuration option will only be available if the route is associated with a single product.