Exploratory Research on Engineering the Transport Industries (ETI): Transportation, Logistics and the Internet - New Challenges and Opportunities

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This award, made under the Exploratory Research on Engineering the Transport Industries (ETI) program solicitation, provides funding to identify important forces, trends and opportunities in transportation and logistics resulting from the increasing presence of the Internet and information technologies. One opportunity, using flexible pricing and bidding strategies to improve transportation and logistics efficiencies, will be studied in detail. The challenge is that most practical bidding systems possess a variety of complications, like uncertain demands, sequential bidding systems and conditional bids, which current models and algorithms are unable to handle efficiently. The results of this grant will include: (1) a survey of emerging practices in the transportation and logistics industry, cataloging among other things, the types (and timeliness) of information available to buyers and sellers of transportation services, the levels of integration among suppliers, producers and carriers, and the degrees of coordination between elements of the value chain; (2) a summary of the important emerging opportunities and the associated research problems in the transportation and logistics industry, serving as a potential roadmap for future research efforts in this domain; and (3) a case study (involving the development of a new optimization model and a solution approach) showcasing an important trend in the industry and characterizing the potential responses and implications. With the development and application of new theory, the major changes occurring in transportation can be exploited to improve transportation and logistics efficiencies significantly, for carriers and shippers.