Benefits of Carrier Collaboration Under Incomplete Advance Demand Information: A Case of Indian Truckload Carriers

In the trucking industry, the shippers seldom provide complete information of the demand to the carriers, making it difficult for these carriers to manage their resources. The carriers have to tackle severe competition and acute shortage of capacity to complete an order which is at times difficult for small truck owners. In such a scenario, collaboration with their competitors can be a solution for such truck owners to tackle this problem. In this paper, we propose two different collaborative practices through capacity sharing, viz., (i) at the individual level and (ii) by forming a coalition. A case-based study has been carried out to demonstrate the benefits of the proposed collaborative practices. Considering the profit earned by a standalone carrier as benchmark, the profit earned through the two collaborative practices have been compared. Our findings suggest that collaboration allows the small truck owners to accept large orders and improve their business operations.