An attribute–decision model for cross-border drayage problem

The drayage services between a container terminal and the origin (or destination) of a shipment account for a significant portion of the total transportation cost. They are the key sources of shipment delays, road congestions, and disruptions in the international logistics network. Such a situation is even worse when the drayage services involve cross-border issues. Using Hong Kong, the busiest port in the world, as an example, we illustrate the challenges and issues in managing drayage activities in hub cities. We show that managing cross-border drayage container transportation is a very challenging problem because not only individual resources (e.g., driver, tractor, and chassis) but also the composites of them (e.g., the driver–tractor–chassis triplets) need to be managed simultaneously. The problem is further complicated by the regulatory policies which govern the cross-border activities. We use an attribute–decision model for this problem and implement an adaptive labeling algorithm to solve it. We conduct numerical experiments to evaluate the system performances under various regulatory policies. The results show that the benefit gained by relaxing the regulatory policies is significant.