Technical Note---Approximating Vehicle Dispatch Probabilities for Emergency Service Systems with Location-Specific Service Times and Multiple Units per Location

Susan Budge (), Armann Ingolfsson () and Erhan Erkut ()
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Susan Budge: School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2R6
Armann Ingolfsson: School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2R6
Erhan Erkut: Ozyegin University, Istanbul, Turkey

Operations Research, 2009, vol. 57, issue 1, 251-255

Abstract: To calculate many of the important performance measures for an emergency response system, one requires knowledge of the probability that a particular server will respond to an incoming call at a particular location. Estimating these “dispatch probabilities” is complicated by four important characteristics of emergency service systems. We discuss these characteristics and extend previous approximation methods for calculating dispatch probabilities to account for the possibilities of workload variation by station, multiple vehicles per station, call- and station-dependent service times, and server cooperation and dependence.

Keywords: health care; ambulance service; queues; approximations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:oropre:v:57:y:2009:i:1:p:251-255

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