The facts on the ground: Evaluating humanitarian fleet management policies using simulation

Liyi Gu, Ilya O. Ryzhov and Mahyar Eftekhar

European Journal of Operational Research, 2021, vol. 293, issue 2, 681-702

Abstract: In humanitarian fleet management, the performance of purchase, assignment, and sales decisions is determined by dynamic interactions between the fleet composition, the time-varying and uncertain demands on the fleet, and the depreciation of the vehicles as they are exploited. We propose to evaluate purchase, assignment, and sales policies in a holistic simulation environment that directly models heterogeneous vehicle attributes and tracks their evolution over time. Using data from a large international humanitarian organization (LIHO), the simulator can identify the rationale behind seemingly ad-hoc decisions by field managers at LIHO. For instance, by selling vehicles later than LIHO recommends, managers are actually reducing their costs; similarly, managers decline to switch vehicles between mission types because the benefits to the operational cost turn out to be marginal at best.

Keywords: Humanitarian logistics; Resource allocation; Humanitarian fleet management; Simulation modeling, (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:293:y:2021:i:2:p:681-702

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2020.12.019

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