Research On Empty Container Collaborative Management For Container Service Supply Chai

With the steady growth of container transportation demand,empty container sharing,empty container ordering and leasing and other empty container planning issues have attracted much attention,and the container service supply chain consisting of forwarders,carriers,ports and other subjects around container transportation has come into being.Each enterprise in the container transportation service chain is profit seeking,and decentralized decision-making will intensify the contradictions between the members of the chain.The participating entities cannot effectively plan container resources from the perspective of the service chain as a whole,which seriously hinders the development of the container service supply chain.In response to the troubles faced by the container service supply chain,this thesis examines the horizontal collaboration and vertical collaboration among the members of the container service supply chain to achieve a reasonable allocation of container resources,ensure a reasonable distribution of benefits and maintain a win-win situation for the collaborative subjects in the container service supply chain.The main research contents of this paper are as follows:(1)Taking the liner firm and the rail firm as the research objects,discuss the empty container inventory sharing problem with customer demand switching in intermodal transport of container transport services,i.e.,study the horizontal collaboration between carriers in the container service supply chain.First,we have considered the situation of no cooperation between the rail firm and the liner firm,and established a model where there is only the customer demand switching without the occurrence of empty container inventory sharing.Next,we consider the cooperation between the rail firm and the liner firm in the decentralized model and the centralized model,and set up the empty container transporting models from the seaport to the dry port respectively.We analyze the optimal inventory level for the rail firm and the liner firm under different models,and the effect of the transporting price on the optimal inventory level.We then apply the contract coordination theory to the empty container inventory sharing problem.We propose an inventory coordination strategy based on a revenue sharing contract and coordinate the intermodal transport system by choosing the appropriate contract parameters.The results of the study show that under the guidance of the seaport,the revenue sharing contract can achieve a win-win situation for the rail firm and the liner firm.(2)Taking two forwarders as the research objects,introduce a one-period,twoechelon option contract into the empty container ordering problem,i.e.,study the horizontal collaboration between forwarders in the container service supply chain.After the demand is updated,the option contract allows the forwarder to adjust the option exercise quantity based on the options ordered at the start of the selling season to reduce losses caused by the inaccurate container order quantity.First,we establish a basic model without option contract.Second,we consider a case with no cooperation between two forwarders and establish a model in which there is only option contract without option trading.Next,we consider the cooperation between the two forwarders in the decentralized and centralized modes and establish a model with option trading.We analyse the optimal option ordering level under different circumstances and the effect of the option trading price on the system profit.We then apply the contract coordination theory to the empty container ordering problem and coordinate the container service supply chain by applying appropriate contract parameters.The results of the study show that option trading can share risks among forwarders,while the two-part tariff contract can achieve win-win outcomes for the two forwarders.(3)Taking the carrier and the forwarder as research objects,under the background of the rapid development of the container transportation market and the addition of the direct canvassing channel of the carrier,discuss the problems of empty container leasing and channel coordination in the dual-channel container service supply chain,i.e.,study the vertical collaboration between the carrier and the forwarder in the dual-channel container service supply chain.In a Stackelberg game with the carrier as the leader,we first study the optimal empty container leasing strategy of the carrier and the forwarder in the decentralized and centralized modes,respectively.Then,we design an improved revenue sharing and buyback joint contract to coordinate the dual-channel container service supply chain.Based on this,we discuss the Pareto improvement interval for the contract parameters that enable the carrier and the forwarder to achieve a win-win situation.Finally,we verify the effectiveness of the joint contract on the coordination and Pareto improvement of the dual-channel container service supply chain through numerical examples and analyze the influence of financing and contract parameters on the whole system and each member.The results suggest that the joint contract can create win-win scenarios for the carrier and the forwarder.(4)Taking the carrier and the forwarder as research objects,further discuss the empty container leasing and coordination of the dual-channel container service supply chain based on option contracts,i.e.,study the vertical collaboration between the carrier and the forwarder in the dual-channel container service supply chain.We first develop a benchmark model that does not take into account the option contract.Then,we introduce the option contract between the forwarder and the carrier and establish empty container leasing models in the decentralized and centralized modes.Next,we introduce an improved revenue-sharing contract based on the model constructed above to investigate the coordination of the revenue-sharing option contract in the dual-channel container service supply chain.We obtain the relational equation for the contract parameters that is satisfied when the system is coordinated and analyze the Pareto improvement interval for the contract parameters that enable the carrier and the forwarder to realize a win-win situation.Finally,the conclusion is confirmed by numerical simulation.The analysis reveals that the option contract is effective in reducing the risk to the forwarder caused by market uncertainty and increasing its profitability.The revenue-sharing option contract can reasonably distribute the system’s profits,resulting in a win-win outcome for both the carrier and the forwarder.This study takes profit maximization of container service supply chain as the optimization objective,takes empty container resource planning as the basic decision variable,and adopts supply chain contract coordination theory to model and solve the cooperation scheme and profit distribution mechanism among the members to realize the effective cooperation of container service supply chain.