Abstract: At present, the mismatch between supply and demand of cold chain transport is quite prominent in China. On the demand side, it is difficult for cargo owners to find cars, slow to find cars. Multi-stage transportation and non-standardized temperature control frequently cause a lot of food loss and waste. On the supply side, the distribution of agricultural products is not balanced, and the drivers are often caught in the shortage of goods and the high cost of empty driving. In the face of industry pain points, SF Express cold transport, etc., actively explore and practice the platform operation mode though integrating dispersed social cold transport resources and provide customers with whole-process cold transport integration services. However, in actual operation, the cold transport enterprises of different sizes on the platform are limited by their own fresh-keeping capacity, and often can only complete half-way of the cold transportation. This specific freight market environment presents a new challenge for logistics platform to choose logistics outsourcing mode. Different from the normal logistics outsourcing, the development of cold chain logistics in China is not long, the number of logistics enterprises that can undertake cold chain transport business is small and the core business is concentrated in the trunk road transport, the fresh transport capacity is different. More prominent is that the “first kilometer” transportation is mostly completed by local small and medium-sized logistics enterprises, the thermal insulation performance of the carriage is poor, and the temperature control technology is relatively backward. In such a realistic environment, it is contrary to objective facts that platform vendors independently determine the freshness-keeping level and require carriers to achieve it. Therefore, we propose a new strategic decision-making mechanism that platform operators can influence the freshness-keeping decision-making of carriers through outsourcing price. Under this new decision mechanism, the platform operator only decides the prices. Then, aimed at a cold service chain composed of one platform operator and two heterogeneous carriers, transport service outsourcing decision models under subcontracting and total contracting modes are constructed. Under the condition that the freshness-keeping level is consistent during the entire transportation process, the optimal freshness-keeping levels, service prices and outsourcing prices were solved. The operation efficiency of service supply chain under two outsourcing modes is compared and analyzed comprehensively from two dimensions: freshness-keeping level and profit. The results show that the platform operator will control the service cost within a certain range, and the platform operator and the carrier will reach the same choice of subcontracting mode, and the freshness-keeping level and the profit of the three parties under the subcontracting mode are higher than the total contracting mode. In the subcontracting mode, because the platform operator can dynamically select the carrier corresponding to the shipper's freshness-keeping level, the platform operator and the carrier are not easy to form a strategic alliance, there is an efficiency loss, and the revenue sharing and service cost sharing mechanism cannot effectively improve the operation efficiency of the subcontracting mode. In particular, when the preservation level of the current half carrier is higher than that of the second half carrier, the preservation level under the subcontracting mode is even higher than that of the strategic alliance. It has important decision reference value for cold transport platform outsourcing transportation business with integrated services.

Key words: logistics outsourcing mode, fresh cold chain, logistics platform, freshness-keeping level