The infinitesimal, the deterministic, and the probabilistic: Alternate container inspection policies in invasive species management

Abstract

Recently, Batabyal and Nijkamp (2005, Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment 19: 340–347) have shown that in an inspection cycle, regardless of whether the inspection policy choice is made on the basis of an optimization exercise or on the basis of a rule of thumb, the “container policy” dominates the “temporal policy” because the former results in lower long run expected net cost (LRENC) from inspections. In this paper, we continue this line of inquiry and analyze container policies in three scenarios. In the first scenario the time taken to conduct inspections is negligible. In the second scenario, this inspection time is deterministic and in the third scenario this inspection time is stochastic. Specifically, we compare and contrast the LRENC and the optimal container policy in each of these three scenarios.