Intermodal transportation service procurement with transaction costs under belt and road initiative

This study aims to devise efficient double auction mechanisms for the intermodal transportation service procurement problem (ITSPP)in the context of the “Belt and Road Initiative”. In ITSPP, the transportation demand of each shipper may contain a bundle of loads in different lanes, while the transportation service provided by each carrier may cover either one or multiple lanes. Three efficient double auction mechanisms that consider transaction costs are proposed. Moreover, a series of computational experiments were conducted to evaluate the performances of the proposed mechanisms. According to the experimental results, several managerial implications are also provided.