Track: Supply Chain Management

Abstract

Freight matching strategy is an essential aspect to design in balancing the trade-offs between platform performance and user performance, particularly in the online freight transportation spot market. The online freight transportation market where the sellers provide services for transporting bulk product using one-time purchase transaction has variability in carrier availability and the rate which increase the complexity of pairing process. This study analyzes the matching process of carriers and shippers in the online freight transportation spot market platform to balance the platform’s profit as well as shipper’s reliability. A simulation approach is used to capture the complexity and uncertainties in the system. We find that the matching strategies significantly affect the platform’s profit and shipment reliability. The balance between the platform and the shipper’s intentions is obtained by putting equal weight on the carriers’ rates and distance to the pickup location. The finding will help the online spot market platforms to deliver the balance strategy in pairing their demand and therefore improve the supply chain performances.