On the Core of Semi-Infinite Transportation Games with Divisible Goods

AMS classifications: 90D12; 90C05; 90C34;cooperative games

On the Core of Semi-Infinite Transportation Games with Divisible Goods

AMS classifications: 90D12; 90C05; 90C34

Learning and Applying Cooperative Solutions: A Classroom Experiment on Transportation Games

In a trade experiment, groups of students were taught how to bargain over a pie generated in a transportation game. Data collection and detailed group reports of the bargaining process allowed us to identify the type of bargaining followed and its correspondence with cooperative game theory concepts. Explicit coalitions were rather scarce (17%), although coalition stability was implied by 47.8% of the agreements. Efficiency was achieved in the vast majority (82%) of cases, whereas in 34.8% of the agreements, students used a lexicographic ordering of multiple solutions before choosing among them. Regarding the bargaining procedure, in 40% of the agreements, quantities traded were decided before profit sharing rules were negotiated, whereas in 16% of the cases they were simultaneously agreed upon. Our findings suggest that bargaining procedures often do not imply explicit coalitions. Moreover, efficiency can be achieved even in the absence of bargaining processes

A survey on assignment markets

The assignment game is a two-sided market, say buyers and sellers, where demand and supply are unitary and utility is transferable by means of prices. This survey is structured in three parts: a first part, from the introduction of the assignment game by Shapley and Shubik (1972) until the publication of the book of Roth and Sotomayor (1990), focused on the notion of core; the subsequent investigations that broaden the scope to other notions of solution for these markets; and its extensions to assignment markets with multiple sides or multiple partnership. These extended two-sided assignment markets, that allow for multiple partnership, better represent the situation in a labour market or an auction

Inter-firm collaboration in transportation

Dans la littérature académique et professionnelle relative au transport de marchandise, il y a longtemps que les méthodes de planification avancées ont été identifiées comme un moyen de dégager des économies grâce à une efficacité accrue des opérations de transport. Plus récemment, la collaboration interentreprises dans la planification du transport a été étudiée comme une source de gain supplémentaire en efficacité et, par conséquent, une opportunité pour dégager de nouvelles économies pour les collaborateurs. Cependant, la mise en œuvre d'une collaboration interentreprises en transports soulève un certain nombre d’enjeux. Cette thèse aborde trois thèmes centraux de la collaboration interentreprises et démontre les contributions via des études de cas dans l’industrie forestière et du meuble. Premièrement, les moyens technologiques pour soutenir une collaboration en planification du transport sont étudiés. Un système d’aide à la décision supportant la collaboration en transport forestier est présenté. Deuxièmement, le partage entre les collaborateurs du coût commun en transport est étudié. Une méthode de répartition du coût de transport tenant compte de l'impact - l’augmentation du coût de transport - des exigences inégales entre des collaborateurs est proposée. Troisièmement, la création de groupes collaboratifs - des coalitions - dans un ensemble de collaborateurs potentiel est étudiée. Un modèle réseau pour la formation d’une coalition selon les intérêts d’un sous-ensemble de collaborateurs adoptant ou pas un comportement opportuniste est détaillé. De plus, pour soutenir l'étude des thèmes précédents, la thèse comprend deux revues de la littérature. Premièrement, une revue sur les méthodes de planification et les systèmes d’aide à la décision en transport forestier est présenté. Deuxièmement, à travers la proposition d'un cadre pour créer et gérer une collaboration en transport et, plus généralement en logistique, une revue de travaux sur le transport et la logistique collaborative est offerte.In the academic and professional literature on freight transportation, computer-based planning methods have a long time ago been identified as a means to achieve cost reduction through enhanced transportation operations efficiency. More recently, inter-firm collaboration in transportation planning has been investigated as a means to provide further gains in efficiency and, in turn, to achieve additional cost reduction for the collaborators. However, implementation of inter-firm collaboration in transportation raises a number of issues. This thesis addresses three central themes in inter-firm collaboration and exemplifies the contributions in case studies involving collaboration in furniture and forest transportation. First, technological means to enable collaboration in transportation planning are studied. Embedding a computer-based planning method for truck routing, a decision support system enabling collaborative transportation is presented. Second, sharing the common transportation cost among collaborators is studied. A cost allocation method taking into account the impact – an increase of the transportation cost – of uneven requirements among collaborators is proposed. Third, building collaborating groups (i.e. coalitions) among a set of potential collaborators is studied. A network model for coalition formation by a subset of self-interested collaborators adopting or not an opportunistic behaviour is detailed. Moreover, to support the study of the aforementioned themes, the thesis includes two literature reviews. First, a survey on planning methods and decision support systems for vehicle routing problem in forest transportation is presented. Second, through the proposition of a framework for building and managing collaboration in transportation and, more generally in logistics, a survey of works on collaborative transportation and logistics is given

Horizontal Cooperation in Transport and Logistics.

This thesis deals with horizontal cooperation in transport and logistics. It contains a comprehensive discussion of the available academic literature on this topic, many practical examples, and an empirical investigation of opportunities and impediments. Furthermore, three enabling concepts for horizontal cooperation in transport and logistics are developed. The analysis is practice oriented in the sense that most of the results are based on real-life datasets. In case studies conducted, the most important goal is to learn lessons that are also applicable to other cases or industries. By contrast, in chapters that have a more theoretical point of departure, efforts are made to draw conclusions that are directly applicable in practice. Many different research techniques are used in this thesis. They include case study analysis, surveys, exploratory factor analysis, regression, game theory, vehicle routing heuristics, and facility location heuristics.

On the core of transportation games

The main purpose of this paper is to study the core of the so-called transportation games, which constitute an extension of the assignment games. We prove the nonemptiness of the core for these transportation games, and some results about the relationship between the core and the dual optimal solutions of the underlying transportation problem are also provided.This research was partially supported by Generalitat Valenciana Project GV/C/CN/10-067-96 and by Spanish DGES Grant PB98-0975