A Decentralized, Smart Market Solution to a Class of Back-Haul Transportation Problems: Concept and Experimental Test Beds

Paul J. Brewer () and Charles R. Plott ()
Additional contact information
Paul J. Brewer: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong SAR, China California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125
Charles R. Plott: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong SAR, China California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125

Interfaces, 2002, vol. 32, issue 5, 13-36

Abstract: Back-haul problems occur in many areas of transportation. One-way rental often takes equipment, such as cases and containers, from an area of high demand to an area of low demand. The problem is to return the equipment to the location of need, a problem typically viewed as an administrative and scheduling problem. We developed a decentralized approach in which a specially designed market organizes competition and information to minimize the cost of back-hauls without the direct intervention of administrative negotiations or command-and-control types of scheduling. We employed laboratory experimental methods to test the concept, examine its performance against theoretical benchmarks, and explore its limitations.

Keywords: Transportation: costs; Games/group decisions: bidding/auctions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.32.5.13.27 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orinte:v:32:y:2002:i:5:p:13-36

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Interfaces from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().