Posted Price versus Hybrid Mechanisms in Freight Transportation Marketplaces

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Chen, Ruoran, Kim, Sungwoo, Wang, He, Wang, Xuan
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2021
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author Chen, Ruoran
Kim, Sungwoo
Wang, He
Wang, Xuan
author_facet Chen, Ruoran
Kim, Sungwoo
Wang, He
Wang, Xuan
contents We consider a freight platform that serves as an intermediary between shippers and carriers in a truckload transportation network. The platform's objective is to design a policy that determines prices for shippers and payments to carriers, as well as how carriers are matched to loads to be transported, to maximize its long-run average profit. We propose a two-stage decision framework to model carriers' load choice behavior, where carriers choose a lane according to the multinomial logit (MNL) model based on the platform's posted price in the first stage and book a load in the second stage. We analyze two types of carrier-side mechanisms commonly used by freight platforms: a posted price mechanism and a hybrid mechanism where carriers can either book loads at posted price or submit their bids in an auction. The proposed mechanisms are constructed using a fluid approximation model to incorporate carrier interactions in the freight network. We show that the hybrid mechanism has higher profits than the posted price mechanism. We prove tight bounds between these mechanisms for varying market sizes. The findings are validated through a numerical simulation using industry data from the U.S. freight market.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2106_00923
institution arXiv
publishDate 2021
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Posted Price versus Hybrid Mechanisms in Freight Transportation Marketplaces
Chen, Ruoran
Kim, Sungwoo
Wang, He
Wang, Xuan
Optimization and Control
We consider a freight platform that serves as an intermediary between shippers and carriers in a truckload transportation network. The platform's objective is to design a policy that determines prices for shippers and payments to carriers, as well as how carriers are matched to loads to be transported, to maximize its long-run average profit. We propose a two-stage decision framework to model carriers' load choice behavior, where carriers choose a lane according to the multinomial logit (MNL) model based on the platform's posted price in the first stage and book a load in the second stage. We analyze two types of carrier-side mechanisms commonly used by freight platforms: a posted price mechanism and a hybrid mechanism where carriers can either book loads at posted price or submit their bids in an auction. The proposed mechanisms are constructed using a fluid approximation model to incorporate carrier interactions in the freight network. We show that the hybrid mechanism has higher profits than the posted price mechanism. We prove tight bounds between these mechanisms for varying market sizes. The findings are validated through a numerical simulation using industry data from the U.S. freight market.
title Posted Price versus Hybrid Mechanisms in Freight Transportation Marketplaces
topic Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.00923