Title: Designing the global inland transportation network

Authors: Hokey Min, Hyun-Jeung Ko, Chin-Soo Lim

Addresses: Department of Management, BAA 3008C, College of Business Administration, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA. ' Shipping, Logistics and Marine Safety Research Department, Korea Maritime Institute, 1027-4 Bangbae 3-dong, Seocho-gu, 137-851 Seoul, Korea. ' Planning and Coordination, Korea Maritime Institute, 1027-4 Bangbae 3-dong, Seocho-gu, 137-851 Seoul, Korea

Abstract: With the unprecedented growth of cross-border trade, a growing number of multinational firms have coped with logistical challenges of shipping products to and from unfamiliar territories in foreign soils. These logistical challenges include the cross-border transportation of products destined to inland regions isolated from major waterways. In particular, the lack of access to major waterways would not only constrain the intermodal transportation option, but also make the door-to-door, containerised delivery services very difficult. Such a limited option would eventually lead to increased transportation costs and transit time, and thereby discouraging international trade with land-locked countries such as Uzbekistan and Mongolia. To help multinational firms tackle the problem of determining the optimal transportation route to inland destinations in land-locked countries, this paper proposes an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)-based Decision Support System (DSS).

Keywords: global SCM; supply chain management; inland transportation; AHP; analytical hierarchy process; logistics; cross-border transportation; multinational corporations; MNCs; land-locked countries; decision support systems; DSS.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2009.024249

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2009 Vol.5 No.5, pp.457 - 472

Published online: 30 Mar 2009 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article