Abstract:

 According to the features of truckload carriers′ alliance, a collaborative profit allocation game was formulated and the characteristic function of the game with its calculation method was defined. Based on analysis of the properties which the game should have, weighting factor that reflected the individual contribution difference and relative profit difference were introduced and the weighted-relative-profit-based collaborative profit allocation model was then proposed in order to overcome the shortcomings of existing  methods. Using the real-life operational data from a certain truckload carriers′ alliance, the proposed model was calculated and compared with the Shapley value and Nucleolus. Computational results and comparisons for the instance showed that the proposed model, which takes into account the interests of both the grand coalition and the individual member, was a fair and rational profit allocation method and the profit allocation derived from the proposed model satisfies all the properties including the effectiveness, basic individual rationality, extended individual rationality, basic stability and extended stability. Thus, the proposed model was able to ensure the stability of the grand coalition and the activity of the individual member.

Key words: collaborative profit allocation, cooperative game, truckload carriers&prime, alliance, individual contribution, relative profit