BlockELM A Public Blockchain Freight Exchange Protocol

Marek Wester, Boris Otto
2021 Proceedings of the 54th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences   unpublished
Freight exchanges are central to the logistics industry, as they reduce empty runs and meet spot demands. To improve their efficiency in terms of automation and enhance trust between the participants, we propose a decentralized freight exchange implemented using public blockchains. With our solution, we also address shortcomings of public blockchains, such as scalability and privacy. We present two artifacts: a general architecture for an electronic logistics marketplace (ELM) and a concrete
more » ... lementation as the proof of concept for a freight exchange. The solution is implemented using two off-the-shelf public blockchains and a public distributed file system. Additionally, we investigate the implications for the general ELM model and show that an ELM based on a blockchain can be viewed as infrastructure rather than a market participant.
doi:10.24251/hicss.2021.679 fatcat:oppl44fro5dkxe4peduxyqv47y