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Most of previous studies of freight demand in Taiwan used
aggregate statistic data for their analysis. Limited number of
studies using disaggregate data have not been very suc- cessful
due to a number of factors including data limitations and
methodology difficulties, etc. This study surveyed 1,549
domestic firms using cement, cereals(wheat, corn, soya bean and
barley), sugar, salt, metals, concentrated juice or meat as an
input material for production. The survey was done by combining
the methods of postcard,tele- phone interview and the visit to
firms and unions. An useful sample of 321 firms was collected.
The main purpose of the survey is to understand the factors
that domestic firms would consider in their logistics process
and to compile a data base for estimating a freight demand
model to describe domestic firms'' logistics / transportation
behaviour. We use switching model to analyze the freight demand
be- haviour of firms, where the choice of mode is regarded as a
discrete one and the choice of shipment size is continuous.
Thes pecification of the model includes the logistics cost
variables derived from the survey. The empirical analysis in-
dicated that to model the joint choice of mode and shipment
size from logistics inventory theory using switching model is
feasible. The main findings of our study include : 1.The
problem of delay, loss and damage in transportation is not very
cruical to domestic firms due to the fact that Taiwan is small.
2.For the same reason, firms usually do not set a high level of
safety stock. Some firms even place their order flexibly when
they used it without considering safety stock. 3.Firms do not
consider only a particular mode attribute or or a logistics
cost in their mode choice decisions. 4.The userate of input
materials and the sufficient supply of trucks and rail cars
have more significant influence on firms'' decisions of mode
choice than the attributes of mode such as freight rate, travel
time, etc.
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