FACTORS INFLUENCING THE SELECTION OF MOTOR CARRIERS

The research attempts to explore the relative importance of service attributes as perceived by shippers in selecting motor carriers. The study focuses on the delivery of automotive parts and consumer goods and involves three stages of survey. The first stage survey is conducted to develop an initial list of important service features. In the second stage survey, shippers are asked to indicate the degree of perceived importance and satisfaction associated with each service feature in the list. The observed scores are analyzed to identify a small number of service features that need carriers' immediate attention. The third stage survey applies the conjoint analysis to derive relative importance of these critical attributes by investigating shippers' stated choices in a number of binary choice settings. The findings via both direct questioning and conjoint analysis techniques agree that "reliability of on-time delivery" is perceived as the most important decision determinant in purchasing trucking services.