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The issue of empty truck trips is largely ignored in the current literature. In order to cover this important research gap, the purpose of this paper is to explore, describe, categorize and rank the potential truck-sharing constraints for container trucks traveling empty around the port gates.

In order to contribute empirically to the current body of knowledge and understandings of truck-sharing constraints, this paper adopts a multi-method empirical approach involving both qualitative interviews and quantitative questionnaire surveys.

Among many key constraints that influence the future of truck-sharing opportunities, the authors determine, for example, that a carrier’s ability to earn the trust of its competitors is one of the top most important factors of success for a fruitful truck-sharing event. The problem is, perhaps, further complicated because of the increasing competitive environment in the container transport industry, as well as the lack of effective coordination between the key parties involved.

None of the earlier studies has provided a broad understanding and ranking of the truck-sharing constraints that should be considered in truck-sharing events, although the empty trips issue has been limitedly mentioned in the recent academic literature.

Empty truck trips are wasted miles. Wasted empty miles decrease transport capacity in the container distribution chain along with causing an increase in carbon emission, traffic congestion, fuel consumption and environmental pollution. The research results can be used by policy makers to underpin effective measures to prevent the low utilization of trucks.

This study addresses an important gap. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in the area that ranks truck-sharing constraints to reduce empty trucks trips.

Truck-sharing stands out as an impactful strategy for minimizing emissions and optimizing the streamlined transport of goods. This study seeks to address a gap in understanding by investigating the barriers shippers face in adopting truck-sharing services.

This study employs the innovation resistance theory to examine a range of potential barriers. A total of seven potential barriers are included in the investigation. Survey data from Bangladeshis are analyzed using an artificial neural network.

The barriers, ranked in importance, include image, tradition, value, usage, risk, psychological ownership and privacy concerns. Thus, psychological barriers (image and tradition) mostly underpin resistance to change, showing that the issue is more rooted in shippers' perceptions than operations. Also, they often do not find a financial cause to use truck-sharing services. Usage barriers, explicitly addressing the practical application of truck-sharing services, have now assumed the third position, underscoring their significance in overcoming the barriers.

The findings provide valuable insights for policymakers to reconsider their approaches in addressing the most formidable truck-sharing barriers.

This insight holds implications for shippers and transport companies, offering strategic guidance to optimize their engagement with and support for such services.

To the best of our knowledge, this study examines shippers' reluctance to adopt truck-sharing services in a developing country.

The purpose of this paper is to explore, through a synthesis of the literature, the causes, benefits, constraints and ways for reducing the number of empty trips made by container trucks. Reduced empty truck trips contribute to sustainable transportation practices in the port territory.

To contribute in the current body of the literature, through a comprehensive synthesis of the studies, this study examines many perspectives surrounding the empty truck trips at container terminals. Hence different, but relevant operational aspects of empty truck trips are explored. This study adopts a content analysis as the research methodology.

Different perspectives, which are drawn from the reviewed literature, identify a research gap in published research in the area of transport collaboration (of supply chain collaboration) and coordination problems in hinterland transport chains (of maritime logistics), and the literature relating to backhauling (of vehicle routing problems with backhauls). To cover that research gap in the literature, this study attempts to highlight and synthesize the important empty-trips studies currently available into a coherent and understandable form.

As an integral part of encouraging collaboration in the container transportation industry, this research may be effective in persuading port authorities to evaluate and to help transport managers to reply to specific enquiries of truck-sharing arrangements.

The utilization of available empty space of container trucks is a feasible option of increasing transport capacity and achieving sustainable transportation benefits.

This paper provides a contemporary lens to view the relationship between empty trips and their applications in the carrier industry, in order to resolve the perceived issues of non-sustainable transportation and their implications for the society.

A seaport is an essential part of a supply chain, but many ports experience truck shortages, creating pressure for port authorities from shippers who need more trucks that move cargo. This study explores and ranks the motives for adopting a truck-sharing concept (where shippers share the same truck for delivery) as a mechanism to improve transport capacity.

This study adopts a multi-method approach – both interviews and surveys. Interviews are first conducted with shippers to explore truck-sharing usage motives. Next, quantitative surveys of both shippers and carriers are conducted to rank those motives.

The study identifies five motives (operational efficiency goal, quick transport solution, sustainability policy, convenience-seeking behavior and secure transport process) for truck-sharing, four critical transport attributes (lower charges for freight, distance travelled, full capacity utilization and environmental recognition), four psychological consequences (monetary savings, greater safety, instant availability of trips and clarification of environmental values), and six core values (secure transport process, being careful of money, ease of doing business, sustainability, status in the community and recognition by customers of shippers).

The qualitative results will help researchers better understand how usage motives influence shippers' willingness to share a truck for transport needs. The quantitative results are useful for ranking truck-sharing motives by their importance.

Based on the findings, managers of carriers can categorize shippers according to their specific needs and thereby customize promotions to attract more shippers.

The findings provide the first, exploratory insights into shippers' motives.

This study aims to improve understanding of how coastal maritime transport system of Vancouver Island would be disrupted in disaster events, and the strategies could be used to address such risks. Any transport disruption at the maritime leg of the supply chain can affect the needs of vulnerable residents and thus, the supply of many goods to coastal communities.

This case study focuses on the disruption that can be expected to occur for ferries that serves coastal communities of Vancouver Island in Canada. A landslide scenario in the Fraser River (which connects coastal communities) is developed, and interviews and focus groups are used to gain understanding of the vulnerability and resilience of shipping.

The findings show that the maritime leg of the supply chain for the coastal communities of Vancouver Island is resilient to a landslide disruption of ferries. Besides, there would be no impact on the operability of tugs and barges. This study also offers suggestions for creating the conditions for increasing resilience of maritime supply chains to any such disruption.

A research gap exists with respect to minimizing disruption in maritime supply chains, mainly in regard to lessening the impact on the vulnerable residents of coastal communities. This study contributes to filling this gap in the literature.

The findings have significant implications for maritime service providers and for people working on disaster preparedness, emergency response and recovery.

Studies which focus on alleviating the impact of disruptions in the maritime supply chains and the mitigation strategies for coastal communities are scarce in the literature.

Supply chain risk (SCR) has been extensively explored in various sectors, yet there is a notable scarcity of SCR studies in the dairy industry. This study aims to identify the primary and distinctive risks in the dairy supply chain (DSC), propose a typological model for SCR, highlight challenges specific to the DSC and offer mitigation strategies.

We employ a systematic literature review to collect and review relevant research articles published between 2010 and 2019 to identify the main risks and mitigation strategies associated with the DSC, enabling the construction of a typological model of DSC risks.

Results of the systematic review of the SCR literature show that the main DSC risks include on-farm risk (e.g. risks originating from the farming system), off-farm risk (e.g. supply risk, demand risk and manufacturing risk) and inherent SCR (e.g. logistics risk, information risk and financial risk). Notably, we find that the farming system plays a key role in today’s agricultural supply chain operations, indicating the importance of considering on-farm risk in the entire DSC. Additionally, mitigation strategies are located in response to the identified DSC risks by the typology of DSC risks.

This paper is the first attempt to develop a typological model of SCR for the dairy industry by a systematic literature review. The findings contribute to providing a comprehensive understanding of DSC risks by bridging the gap of ignoring the on-farm risks of the DSC in the existing literature. The typology may serve as a guide in practice to develop mitigation strategies in response to DSC risks.

This study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the supply chain (SC) operations of importing used vehicles into New Zealand and how such SCs affect business practices and performance.

The study uses an exploratory qualitative semi-structured interview approach to interview the different stakeholders involved in the global used vehicle SC.

The research identifies the overall network structure of the used import vehicle SC from Japan to New Zealand and characterises key aspects of its operations and network connections. This paper finds that Japanese buying agents have integrated increasing numbers of services to provide a trouble-free trading platform, which has created a direct-import model for used vehicle companies in New Zealand.

The findings and recommendations are useful in designing and managing the used vehicle SC for all stakeholders and effective real-time management of uncertain factors.

The paper primarily analyses SC operations by researching the cooperation and coordination between SC components and networks, based on providing the flow of used vehicles from Japan to New Zealand. It constitutes a pioneering practice-perspective research paper in this domain.

This study aims to expand the current knowledge of the Six Sigma approach in a period of time when there is little direct evidence of the need to improve the credit card account opening process. This is an important but neglected area of focus in the Six Sigma literature. This study explores the extent to which process improvement practices are extended to the credit card department.

A case study methodology is adopted in this study to facilitate an exploration of the implemented Six Sigma approach in the credit card department of a leading commercial bank. The process improvement tool used is the define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) cycle.

The study’s results confirm that the Six Sigma approach improves the quality of the credit card account opening process. So, the Six Sigma approach can account for a reduced number of keying-in errors, resulting in better data accuracy and improved customer satisfaction.

The authors, in an attempt to render the study results more feasible for data collection, have chosen to focus on the process of the new accounts unit of the credit card department. Therefore, the authors have not taken into account the other units (e.g. transaction processing) of the same department.

The results of this study will be useful in persuading bank management to evaluate and implement the Six Sigma approach. Hence, this research will assist bank managers with replies to questions, such as: “What impact will Six Sigma have on process-centric improvement, such as the new accounts opening process of a credit card department?”

Within the literature on the Six Sigma practice, there is little research that focuses on the implementation of this particular toolset especially for credit card departments. This indicates a gap in the field. A new contribution to bridging that gap comes from the analysis of the results for the Six Sigma concept, which addresses the new accounts opening process.

This study aims to explore the challenges of truck-sharing and effective ways of dealing with those in achieving supply chain collaboration and collaboration in transportation management (e.g. transport collaboration) for transport capacity expansion, and reducing carbon emission and traffic congestion for integrating environmental and social sustainability issues. This paper also reveals insights into successful shared-transportation and a reduction in empty trips.

This exploratory qualitative study was conducted by means of interviewing road carriers from the container transportation industry.

In a truck-sharing initiative, technical issues (e.g. carrying capacity) arise, some of which involve the container truck and some involving constraints that cannot be controlled, such as driving restrictions, seaport operating hours, and the presence of the large number of container categories pertaining to the industry. Therefore, a significant amount of “structural empty running” may always prevail. It should also be noted that some, seemingly vital, constraints can actually be changed, treated, or modified for better truck-sharing outcomes, such as building a foundation of trust and establishing coordination among road carriers.

A probable solution to the problem of increasing hinterland transport capacity is to make appropriate use of the huge number of idle truck slots that exist; this could be achieved by encouraging the acceptance of the challenges of truck-sharing realistically and suggesting an approach to handling them.

To broaden its appeal, truck-sharing initiatives must be able to overcome challenges by combining theoretical insight with an understanding of the practical aspects of such an endeavor. This original research fosters knowledge that is unique and which also has real-life applications in maritime logistics studies and supply chain literature for both port authorities and container road carriers.

Empty container trucks may cause a deficit in transport capacity and contribute to congestion and emissions in the port territory. Reengineering of the container truck hauling process to introduce truck-sharing arrangements using the truck appointment system has the potential of reducing the number of empty-truck trips. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This research evaluates the results from an investigation of the truck appointment system using a case study approach. The data collection phase involved primary and secondary sources along with using publicly available data on port operations.

The study explores a dynamic truck-sharing facility for a computer-based matching system to assign probable export containers to available empty slots of a container truck. The proposed model reengineers the truck appointment system with a potential to reduce the number of empty-truck trips to increase container transport capacity around seaport gates.

Due to continuous increases in container-freight traffic, leading seaports of the world are experiencing a capacity shortage resulting in traffic congestion. The research findings are useful in practice as the proposed truck-sharing model can be introduced to enhance capacity in the container transport chain of the port territory.

The empty-trucks problem has not been addressed much in studies from a decentralized perspective where all truck operators have an equal chance to contribute to optimize the supply chain in contrast with the typical one-company-based optimization. The solution addressed here uses the shared-transportation concept to cover the research gap.