Modeling carrier collaboration in freight networks

This work presents two mechanisms for modeling alliance formation between leader carriers in a freight network for more efficient utilization of their resources: partial collaboration and complete collaboration. The performance of these alliance formation mechanisms is compared against the no collaboration case for various network topologies and demand levels. In the partial collaboration case, each leader carrier first maximizes his individual profits and leases out the residual capacity to other carriers. In the complete collaboration case all leader carriers join together to maximize the profit of the alliance. The profits are then distributed among the alliance members using the Shapley value principle. Numerical tests reveal that the topology of the network and the demand levels play an important role in determining the profits from each collaboration mechanism. It was also inferred that each of these factors also play a major role in determining the best collaboration strategy.