NSF/USDOT: Collaborative Research: Impact of Real-time Carrier-shipper Interaction on Transportation System Performance

运输部门继续采用提供实时信息的电讯和信息技术，以提高生产力和绩效。最近，这些技术已经开始改变合同谈判的方式，使需求和供应能够通过市场机制动态匹配。随着运输服务拍卖市场的发展，运输市场的结构可能会发生重大变化，其形式是互联网站点匹配装运（托运人需求）和运输能力（承运人提供）。这些虚拟枢纽的发展及其特征对分析这些系统的性能以及将这些机制纳入承运人和托运人（和/或其代理人）的运营决策的方法具有根本性的影响。本研究计划将发展模型技术，以分析在线电子运输市场背景下承运人与托运人的互动。承运商和托运人被建模为实体，它们根据历史（经验）、学习、对当前行动的未来后果的预期以及不断发展的策略，决定与其他代理以及与环境的交互。除了开发支持个体参与者在不同程度信息共享的非合作决策环境中的策略的方法外，本研究还研究了在不同市场环境和个体参与者策略下的整体市场行为、效率和由此产生的托运人服务水平。所获得的结果与在线市场上的托运人和承运人以及与运输系统的结构和效率有关的政府机构和决策实体有关。为了利用实时拍卖市场的潜在机会，托运人和承运人都需要对实时信息的掌握达到一个新的水平，不仅是关于他们的货物状态，还有。/或车队，还包括通过这些市场进行交易的整个系统。该研究在方法论上的贡献已经超出了交通系统领域的应用范围，包括分布在空间和时间上的各种基础设施服务。

The transportation sector continues to adopt telecommunication and information technologies that provide real-time information to enhance productivity and performance. Recently these technologies have started to modify the way contracts are negotiated, by enabling demand and supply to be matched dynamically through market mechanisms. A significant change may be taking place in the structure of the transportation market, with the development of auction markets for transportation services, in the form of Internet sites that match shipments (shippers demand) and transportation capacity (carriers offer). The development of these virtual hubs and their characteristics have fundamental implications for the methodologies to both analyze the performance of such systems, as well as to incorporate these mechanisms in the operational decisions of carriers and shippers (and/or their agents).This research project will develop modeling techniques to analyze carrier-shipper interaction in the context of an online electronic transportation marketplace. Carriers and shippers are modeled as entities that determine their interaction with other agents and with their environment on the basis of history (experience), learning, expectations about future consequences of current actions, and evolving strategies. In addition to developing methods to support individual player strategies in a non-cooperative decision environment with varying degrees of information sharing, the study investigates overall market behavior, its efficiency and resulting shipper service levels under different market settings and individual player strategies. The results obtained are of relevance to both shippers and carriers operating in online markets, as well as government agencies and policy-making entities concerned with the structure and efficiency of the transportation system. To take advantage of potential opportunities in real-time auction markets, both shippers and carriers require a new level of mastery of real-time information about not only the state of their shipments and./or fleets, but also about the entire system transacted through those markets. The methodological contributions of the research have applications that extend beyond the realm of transportation systems to include various infrastructure services that are distributed over space and time.