On the Demand for Flexible and Responsive Freight Transportation Services

Abstract

Several innovations during the last decades have impacted freight transportation as one of the major drivers of global economic development. Both demand and supply of freight transportation services have been transformed through major recent logistics’ innovations such as globalization dynamics, freight network integration, mass-individualized logistics services, digitalization and advanced transportation technologies. Changes in the service deployment of logistics service providers (LSPs) will ultimately transform characteristics of their logistics service packages resulting in the emergence of new service features for their customers i.e., shipper firms. These new features not only influence business operations of the customer firms directly or indirectly, but also change shipper firms’ expectations in the long run. While a deep understanding of customers’ needs is one of the key factors to sustain competitive advantage of firms, in freight transportation less attention is being paid to understand beforehand whether an innovation is appreciated and will be utilized by customers. The innovations in freight transportation services are offering shippers new choices and service offerings which claim big advantages for shippers. However, no one has yet tried to measure these advantages. This lack of knowledge makes it difficult for LSPs to compose multi-dimensional service packages and to set prices in the market. Fulfilling this practical need requires a major research effort, to formulate and empirically model the demand for these services....