Importance Analysis of Decision Making Factors for Selecting International Freight Transportation Mode

Abstract

Currently, the competition among carriers in the international freight service industry is getting fierce. In particular, the LCC (Low Cost Carriers) in Korea secured the licenses for international freight delivery service. However, due to the high costs, most shippers prefer car ferry services over air transportation, even though the service level of air transportation is considerably better. The present paper investigates how the LCCs, as compared to car ferry services, secure the competitive advantage in the international transportation service as compared to car ferry services. We have focused on the factors shippers regard as the most important for selecting transportation mode. For a reasonable comparison, we have limited the business area to the north eastern Asian countries, including Korea, China, Japan, and Russia. We have developed a questionnaire for the shippers who export their own product in these countries from Korea. Based on the results of fuzzy-AHP, it can be concluded that the factors related to the reliability and convenience are regarded as the important factors for selecting the transportation mode. Furthermore, the results of this study can be used by LCCs to develop their own strategies for competing with car ferry services. Keywords: Transportation Mode, International Cargo, LCC, Car Ferry, Fuzzy-AHP