In a slot exchange co-operation, participating carriers seek to benefit in which their surplus of controlled capacities can be shared to exchange slots belong to partners for their shortages. To each participant, whether the exchanged conditions can bring more benefits is based on its slot allocation planning. This paper introduces a practical slot exchange contract for multiple short sea loops between two co-operative carriers. Two integer programming models for maximizing the concerned profits are proposed to satisfy the expected demand level and shipping properties. One of the models merely considers slot exchange as the practical planning, and the other one includes slot purchase additionally. Decision results can assist the studied company to pursue an optimal allocation with consideration of exchanged slots for the involved lines. Moreover, sensitivity analyses including fixed exchanged condition, swap allowance influence, and purchase price assessment are carried out for measuring the impact of relevant variables to the profits. I. INTRODUCTION In contemporary liner shipping industry, alliance cooperation has been a popular approach adopted by carriers for extending service scopes and/or reducing investment risks. Concrete means of collaboration like joint fleet, slot charter, slot purchase, and slot exchange are normally employed in practice. This research focuses on a real-world case of slot exchange among short sea services. Slot exchange allows participating carriers to use the recognized capacities of the involved lines not operated by own self, according to the contents of the agreement. In such co-operation, participating carriers expect to benefit in which their surplus of controlled slots can be shared to exchange capacities for their shortages. Accordingly, the exchanged condition must have a fair and reciprocal calculation among the involved lines between participants. If the number of exchanged slots cannot satisfy a carrier’s estimated demand, extra available slots could be purchased from its partner as long as the deal is accepted by all of them. For fulfilling the benefit from the alliance contract as expectation, the carrier has to make an ideal slot allocation plan to understand the proposal of exchanged conditions. This research explores how to construct a beneficial proposal for the participating carrier. The co-operative structures among liner companies began from conferences and consortia to the recent strategic alliances. Several studies have been devoted on the strategic alliances from different perspectives such as the exploration of cooperative purpose [7], motivations and successful reasons [14], and the main driving factors to yield the high degree of instabilities in the beginning of strategic alliances [12]. It was found that the obvious changes in the operations of liner shipping

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	slot exchange, slot purchase, short sea service, slot allocation
Research Division:	Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services
Research Group:	Transportation, logistics and supply chains
Research Field:	Transportation, logistics and supply chains not elsewhere classified
Objective Division:	Transport
Objective Group:	Water transport
Objective Field:	International sea freight transport (excl. live animals, food products and liquefied gas)
UTAS Author:	Chen, S (Associate Professor Peggy Chen)
ID Code:	68570
Year Published:	2010
Web of Science® Times Cited:	16
Deposited By:	NC Ports and Shipping
Deposited On:	2011-03-14
Last Modified:	2011-11-08
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