Analysis of Choice Behaviors of Railway Shippers for Freight Services Based on a Fuzzy Integrated Choice and Latent Variable Model

The existing schemes show that the application of an Integrated Choice and Latent Variable (ICLV) model in choice behaviors of railway shippers in freight services provided by China Railway Express (CRE) and private logistics enterprises (PLEs) is a challenge. Therefore, this paper focuses on the freight service products of CRE and PLEs and constructs a Fuzzy ICLV model by combining a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation with the ICLV model to analyze choice behaviors in freight services of railway shippers. The Fuzzy ICLV model offered significant advantages because it allowed us to incorporate latent variables that regard perceived convenience and reliability with a traditional discrete choice model (DCM). The results of the Fuzzy ICLV model clearly confirm that shippers’ perceptions of the convenience and reliability of freight service products impact their freight service product choices. The results also show that the freight, time, distance from shippers to the sales department, destination distance, occupation, monthly income level, order quantity, cargo weight, and type are all major factors that affect Chinese railway shippers’ choice behaviors for freight services. The goodness-of-fit measure of the Fuzzy ICLV model is 0.325, which is higher than that of the Nested Logit (NL) model. The results of this study can fill the gaps in choice behaviors in freight services research on Chinese railway shippers and have important implications for operators of CRE to adjust their freight service strategies or products.