CASE STUDY: EFFECTS OF VEHICLE USAGE ON THE ROAD TRANSPORTATION PROFIT IN CHINESE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

摘要

Road transportation in Chinese petroleum industry is experiencing many risks such as the fluctuating nature of gas prices, changing regulations, driver retention issues and claims. These risks are causing low or even negative profit, which makes optimizing road transportation profit a meaningful research topic. Most of the relevant literature in road transportation revolves around routing models, energy efficiency of vehicles, and revenue management under demand uncertainty; however, they do not focus on the internal issues that decision makers will use to analyze road transportation profit. In this research, relevant factors concerning vehicle usage that may influence road transportation profit in the petroleum industry were explored. A case study is presented to analyze the effects of the factors, the interactions that may exist, and their overall effects on the profit. Managerial insights guiding the actions that relevant petroleum enterprises should take to effectively arrange vehicle usage to keep high profits are gained.