DOI 10.1007/s00291-005-0031-2 REGULAR ARTICLE Marta Anna Krajewska . Herbert Kopfer Collaborating freight forwarding enterprises Request allocation and profit sharing Published online: 25 March 2006 © Springer-Verlag 2006 Abstract The paper presents a model for the collaboration among independent freight forwarding entities. In the modern highly competitive transportation branch freight forwarders reduce their fulfillment costs by exploiting different execution modes (self-fulfillment and subcontraction). For self-fulfillment they use their own vehicles to execute the requests and for subcontracting they forward the orders to external freight carriers. Further enhancement of competitiveness can be achieved if the freight forwarders cooperate in coalitions in order to balance their request portfolios. Participation in such a coalition gains additional profit for the entire coalition and for each participant, therefore reinforcing the market position of the partners. The integrated operational transport problem as well as existing collaboration approaches are introduced. The presented model for collaboration is based on theoretical foundations in the field of combinatorial auctions and operational research game theory. It is applicable for coalitions of freight forwarders, especially for the collaboration of Profit Centres within large freight forwarding companies. The proposed theoretical approach and the presented collaboration model are suitable for a coalition of freight forwarding companies with nearly similar potential on the market. Keywords Collaboration . Freight forwarder . Profit sharing . Multi-agent auction 1 Introduction In the ongoing globalization process large international freight forwarding companies are more competitive than small companies due to their wider portfolio of disposable resources and a higher ranking in the market power structure. The remedy for the medium- and small-sized carrier businesses is to establish coalitions M. A. Krajewska (*) . H. Kopfer Department of Economics, University of Bremen, Wilhelm-Herbst-Strasse 5, 28359 Bremen, Germany E-mail: makr@logistik.uni-bremen.de, kopfer@logistik.uni-bremen.de OR Spectrum 28:301–317 (2006) [Kra06a] Krajewska, M.; Kopfer, H.: Collaborating freight forwarding enterprises - request allocation and profit sharing. In: OR Spectrum, 3(2006)28, pp. 301-317