Shared resources in collaborative vehicle routing

The logistics industry is known to suffer from inefficiencies. Recently published numbers on the percentage of trucks running idle or almost idle on European road networks are alarming. Collaborative transportation offers opportunities to share capacities and thus reduce inefficiencies and environmental pollution considerably. It is therefore a highly relevant topic for both researchers and practitioners. We survey up-to-date literature in the field of shared resources in collaborative vehicle routing. We report that, in the last 3 years alone, more than 40 relevant articles were published. These studies can be classified according to the underlying level of information sharing. If a fully informed decision maker exists, we refer to this as centrally planned collaboration. In decentralized collaborations coalition partners agree on mechanisms, where no or only a limited amount of information has to be revealed. We elaborate on recent findings and identify topical research gaps for both centralized and decentralized collaborations.