Pooling of critical, low-utilization resources with unavailability

Abstract

We consider an environment in which several independent service providers can collaborate by pooling their critical, low-utilization resources that are subject to unavailability. We examine the allocation of the joint profit for such a pooled situation by studying an associated cooperative game. For this game, we will prove non-emptiness of the core, present a population monotonic allocation scheme and show convexity under some conditions. Moreover, four allocation rules will be introduced and we will investigate whether they satisfy monotonicity to availability, monotonicity to profit, situation symmetry and game symmetry. Finally, we will also investigate whether the payoff vectors resulting from those allocation rules are members of the core.