Advanced OR and AI Methods in Transportation DEVELOPMENT OF VEHICLE TRANSSHIPMENT AT EUROPEAN PORTS

Ongoing globalization causes increasing transportation rates and transshipment volumes at sea ports (Steenken, 2004). Different to container transshipment, the transshipment of finished vehicles has received only minor attention in research yet (Mattfeld and Kopfer, 2003). By means of statistics for major ports of the North-West European coast line the structure and development of vehicle transshipment is outlined. It is shown that a concentration of transshipment volume with respect to specific market segments is taking place. Hub and spoke structures, as already common for container transportation, have not yet been implemented. 1. Vehicle Distribution From the beginning of the automobile industry, manufacturers have recognized the importance of the economies of scales resulting from the high investments required for automobile mass production. Typically the worldwide production of a vehicle model is awarded to one single plant only (Spatz and Nunnenkamp, 2002). This increases the delivery distance per automobile produced, which in turn leads to a substantial increase in vehicle transportation (Cullen, 1998). Distribution logistics of finished vehicles are confronted with a set of constraints, which are hard to meet simultaneously: • The transportation volume will increase due to foreign investments of manufacturers. • Since a vehicle model is typically produced in one plant worldwide, the transportation distance to the customer market can be very great. • Customers may choose from a variety of models. As a result the number of items per model sold on a regional market will be relatively small. • In order to avoid extensive buffer stocks, the transportation lead-time has to be sufficiently short. This requires a fast transportation mode and, probably more important, a high frequency of transports. ∗ TU Braunschweig, Dept. of Business Administration, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany