Methods for Solving Nonlinear Equations Used in Evaluating Emergency Vehicle Busy Probabilities

Jeffrey Goldberg and Ferenc Szidarovszky
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Jeffrey Goldberg: University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
Ferenc Szidarovszky: University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona

Operations Research, 1991, vol. 39, issue 6, 903-916

Abstract: In this paper we present two iterative methods for solving a model to evaluate busy probabilities for Emergency Medical Service (EMS) vehicles. The model considers location dependent service times and is an alternative to the mean service calibration method; a procedure, used with the Hypercube Model, to accommodate travel times and location-dependent service times. We use monotonicity arguments to prove that one iterative method always converges to a solution. A large computational experiment suggests that both methods work satisfactorily in EMS systems with low ambulance busy probabilities and the method that always converges to a solution performs significantly better in EMS systems with high busy probabilities.

Keywords: health care; ambulance service; evaluating busy probabilities; mathematics; fixed points: fixed point methods for nonlinear equations; queues; approximations: nonlinear equation approximation models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1991
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