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Abstract
In the agricultural industry, the importance of transportation costs is considerably heightened as fuel and labor costs rise. Logistic cooperation is an important strategic alternative to reduce transportation costs and increase efficiencies. Georgias ornamental industry is characterized by producers that share clients, routes and origins; however, each producer has an independent transportation system. This paper analyzes a case study to determine if a transportation alliance through a horizontal cooperation and routing junction among ornamental producers in Georgia would reduce shipping costs, increase distribution efficiencies and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Results showed that, with the use of the GIS ArcLogistics 9.3 software, transportation alliances in the ornamental industry are profitable in terms of transport efficiencies and internal and external costs. Total cost savings per shipping cycle ranged from 1.0% to 13.2%, total miles driven savings from 1.1% to 13.6%, total number of trucks savings from 2.5% to 10.0% and driving hours savings from 1.0% to 18.4%. CO2 emissions savings were also achieved, ranging from 1.2% to 8.4% per shipping cycle.