Adequate Level Of Service Research Articles

Концепція маркетингової логістики продукції рослинництва та її роль у економічній діяльності сільськогоспо-дарських підприємств

This study adopts a unique approach, drawing on the dialectical method of cognition, fundamental economic theory, marketing, and logistics principles, as well as the works of domestic and foreign scientists. The focus is on the formation of marketing logistics concepts for agricultural enterprises in crop production in the agri-food products market, presenting a fresh perspective that will intrigue and engage the reader. To carry out the research, various general and special scientific research methods were used, including theoretical generalization and comparison (formulation of conclusions and terminology in marketing logistics), monographic (in-depth study of marketing logistics), historical-retrospective (analysis of marketing logistics development), heuristic (assessment of marketing logistics processes in agri-food product markets), graphic (representation of research results and economic process trends), etc. The ‘supply chain of agro-food products’ and its economic significance are explained in detail, making the audience aware of its crucial role. The study establishes the crucial role of logistics in supplying agri-food products for ensuring global food security and promoting competitiveness in Ukraine’s agricultural sector. An analysis of the functions of marketing and logistics of agricultural enterprises revealed a strong connection between the two. Typically, this relationship is demonstrated through elements of the marketing mix, such as product and pricing policies and distribution policies. The product policy in marketing is identified as the most significant element of the marketing mix for agrarian sector enterprises. The author’s definition of the economic essence of the concept of “marketing logistics” is proposed, which performs the management function of coordinating and coordinating marketing and logistics activities in food supply chains and is focused on methods that ensure an adequate level of customer service to provide competitive advantages to enterprises of the agrarian sector in the markets of agri-food products. The concept of marketing logistics for an agricultural enterprise was developed to improve the effectiveness of logistics functions in agrarian formations and implement marketing-based logistics activities. The study provides a comprehensive analysis of the long-term evolution (1961-2021) and price forecast (2023-2031) for agri-food products in real terms. It also offers insights into the structure of global consumption of agri-food products according to needs (food needs, animal feed, biofuel, other needs) in 2019-2021, and a forecast of its development for 2031 based on data from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO). This information will keep the audience informed and prepared for future developments in the agri-food industry. Keywords: marketing logistics, logistics supply chains of agri-food products, world prices for agri-food products, grain crops, corn, food safety, the complex marketing of an agricultural enterprise, the concept of marketing logistics of an agricultural enterprise.

Energy vulnerability of detached home owners in Finland: An explorative study

Vulnerability to energy poverty occurs when a household has difficulties to meet adequate energy service levels. Recent energy crises manifested the consequences of energy vulnerability also in the Nordic countries. This study brings evidence on energy poverty in Finland, using a large household energy survey dataset (N = 4,295). The ten-per-cent limit threshold is used to measure objective energy vulnerability and the subjective measure is based on the regularity of households’ self-assessed psychological burden regarding their energy expenditures. In our dataset, 18 % of households in detached and semi-detached houses were objectively energy poor and 27 % felt a regular energy-cost burden. Heating type, building age, education level and gender were significant determinants. Ownership of a ground-source heat pump and usage of solid wood reduces winter energy poverty in Finland. Women, particularly in older age groups were significantly more vulnerable than men. For some groups, objective and subjective measurement produced distinctively different results. Households using oil heating in a hybrid heating arrangement were more vulnerable in the objective measurement but they did not feel a similar subjective energy cost burden. Families with children felt subjectively more burdened by their energy expenses than other groups, but they were not more energy-poor along the objective measurement. This is one of the first energy vulnerability studies based on large amount of citizen survey data in Finland and we recommend that further research focuses particularly on how different social groups can access and use different heating installations as this is a key determinant of energy vulnerability in countries with substantial domestic heating energy needs.

The DYNAMO Initiative – Improving health system resilience through dynamic modelling of integrated health and care pathways in response to systemic shocks

Background: Unexpected systemic shocks such as pandemics or natural disasters challenge the absorptive capacity of health and care systems to maintain adequate service levels.[1] Strategies have focused on better coordination between services, with multi-disciplinary care pathways being one instrument to achieve coordinated responses.[2] But the co-design process for this type of pathways tends to be too long and involved for fast response required by crises.
 Targeted community and stakeholder engagement: Health and care service planners and providers, service payers, public health and civil protection agencies as well as regional and municipal governments are affected by this problem. They need methods and tools to support ad-hoc design and instantiation of cross-sectoral pathways to address different types of crises. The DYNAMO initiative has brought together an initial group of stakeholders from five countries to start a multi-staged co-design programme that will also include further stakeholders.
 Explanation of the initiative: DYNAMO will develop an innovative software tool enabling stakeholders to jointly adapt existing service delivery processes to systemic shocks and structural changes. This includes sharing and integrating cross-sectoral data to accurately forecast possible outcomes and impacts of alternative pathway configurations. By means of a public tendering process, the participating care providers are developing the software package together with commercial technology providers. Up to now, local pathway modelling groups have been set up at each site. These have identified several ""high pressure"" service scenarios (e.g. future pandemics widespread internet/power outages, recurrent heat waves). For each scenario, alternative pressure points were identified that could have a notable impact on the performance of current health and care systems (e.g. resource or staff shortages). In the next project phase, several technology providers will be selected to co-develop prototype solutions that meet the requirements of the "high-pressure" service scenarios.
 Achieved and expected impacts: The definition of the high pressure scenarios and associated pressure points are a first outcome and showed that priorities for disaster readiness vary considerably between regions. With the software tools and methodologies to be developed, DYNAMO expects to significantly improve the response time and quality of health care ecosystems to a wide variety of systemic threats.
 Learnings for an international audience: DYNAMO is in its early stages and there are as yet no formalized learnings. Experiences and observations shared between projects participants however highlighted two key issues: 1) Responses to universal threats still happen in a haphazard and uncoordinated manner and awareness of the precise issue of multi-disciplinary pathways to respond to such threats is still too low. 2) While DYNAMO focusses on the development of a software tool, there is agreement among participating regions that this needs to be embedded into a regional cooperation culture and structure (a kind of “readiness community”) in order to achieve its intended impacts.
 [1] Adger WN, Brown K, Fairbrass J. et al. Governance for sustainability: towards a ‘thick’ analysis of environmental decision making. Environ Plan A. 2003;35(6):1095–1110. doi: 10.1068/A35289.
 [2] Lewis, L. and N. Ehrenberg (2020). Realising the true value of integrated care: Beyond COVID-19. https://integratedcarefoundation.org/publications/realising-the-true-value-of-integrated-care-beyond-covid-19-2#report
 

Service-oriented container slot allocation policy under stochastic demand

The liner shipping industry plays a pivotal role in global cargo transportation, catering to both contract and spot shippers. Proper capacity allocation between these shippers is vital for maintaining service quality and improving revenue. This research investigates the service-oriented container slot allocation problem under stochastic demand, aiming to maximize total freight revenue while providing adequate service levels to contract shippers for sustaining their market loyalty. We use the fill rate (i.e., the proportion of satisfied demand) as a metric for service level and formulate the research problem as a stochastic linear programming model. To solve this model, we convert it into a multi-objective attainability problem by setting a target for total revenue, and apply Blackwell’s Approachability Theorem to theoretically determine the feasibility of any given revenue and service level requirements. Leveraging these insights, we devise near-optimal policies to guide the slot allocation decision under each demand scenario. Numerical experiments demonstrate that our approach outperforms the benchmark policies in the literature. Furthermore, it can also achieve near-optimal performance closely resembling the sampling average approximation (SAA) solution while significantly reducing the computational time.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF METHODS FOR FORMING A NETWORK OF FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS

This article compares the characteristics of existing methods for forming a network of food establishments. By analyzing three methods - Soviet, current, and theoretical - the authors propose their own method for forming a network of food establishments in residential areas. The aim of the article is to highlight the methodology for determining the service radius for a food establishment in a residential area and to determine its advantages compared to existing methods. 
 Comparative analysis and synthesis methods were used in the study. The novelty of the proposed method lies in its advantages over existing methods. The main advantage of the new method for forming a network of food establishments is the ability to accurately determine the places of food service inadequacy in a residential area by specific types of food establishments, allowing for optimal placement. 
 The scientific results indicate the advantages of implementing the new network of food establishments in residential areas, such as the influence of architects and residents on the choice of location, type and format of food establishments, and the alignment of interests between owners' profitability and accessibility for residents to different types of food establishments. 
 However, the implementation of the proposed method for forming a network of food establishments may require more time due to the large number of existing types and formats of food establishments, which can be considered a disadvantage. Nevertheless, the resulting network should provide greater efficiency compared to its predecessors. 
 The research findings can be used in the planning of residential areas, particularly for determining the need to include new food establishments in residential areas and ensuring adequate levels of service for the population.

Centrality-based lane interventions in road networks for improved level of service: the case of downtown Boise, Idaho

Recent advancements in network science showed that the topological credentials of the elements (i.e., links) in a network carry important implications. Likewise, roadway segments (i.e., links) in a road network should be assessed based on their network position along with traffic conditions at a given geographic scale. The goal of this study is to present a framework that can identify and select critical links in a road network based on their topological importance such as centrality, and the effects of systematic interventions conducted on such links in improving overall system performance (vehicle delay, travel time) to provide an adequate level of service (LOS). A real-world road network (Boise downtown) is investigated by applying lane interventions on roadways experiencing high congestion. Microscopic traffic simulation and analyses are conducted to estimate the traffic flow parameters hence the performance of the road segments. The findings of this study show that interventions applied to critical and congested road segments improve the serviceability from LOS F to LOS E as well as from LOS D to LOS C. Besides, reduced travel time and vehicular delay (after applying intervention on critical components) are also observed for high demand OD pairs of the road network. As such the proposed framework has the potential to incorporate the topological credentials with traffic flow parameters and improve the performance of the road network. This systematic approach will help traffic managers and practitioners to develop strategies that enhance road network performance.

Specifikacije modernog informacionog sistema za održavanje medicinske opreme u zdravstvu

Effective management of the maintenance of medical equipment (ME), especially high-tech one, is one of the main issues for the quality of health care, for the provision of cost-effective health services and for saving , even in developed countries, insufficient resources. Medical equipment maintenance (EM) includes all activities related to ensuring an adequate level of service and limiting the downtime of medical equipment in a healthcare organization. Traditionally, EM is categorized as preventive maintenance (PM) and corrective maintenance (CM). The principle of PM is prediction. PM can be planned and predictive, ie. Just-In-Time (JIT) maintenance. Predictive maintenance can only be applied to new high-tech medical devices that have built-in self-testing. Planned preventive maintenance is carried out in accordance with the maintenance plan for a certain period of time. As a rule, when creating the plan, we follow the manufacturer's recommendations for preventive maintenance of ME given in the technical documentation of the ME, especially in the instructions for the maintenance of the ME. Predictive or JIT maintenance makes it possible to detect and solve the problem before problems and contingencies actually occur, and this is done on the basis of intelligent monitoring and analysis of the state of ME at the right moment, which ensures the optimal time for intervention, so that maintenance performed only when necessary. The information system for the management of the maintenance of ME in healthcare institutions would interconnect healthcare institutions and enable the fast and safe exchange of data and information related to the maintenance of ME and enable the optimal maintenance of ME in healthcare institutions, increasing the availability of this equipment, especially high-tech equipment, with significant reduction of the total cost of maintaining ME (of the order of 30%). One of the main reasons for the unsustainability of the existing approach to the maintenance of ME in the healthcare institutions of Serbia is that each healthcare institution independently takes care of the maintenance of its own ME. This approach is expensive and significantly affects high maintenance costs. This approach needs to change.

Service level indicators evaluation of water supply systems: water users’ perspective

ABSTRACT Service level of water supply systems (WSS) was assessed across in Ogun State, Southwest Nigeria. The WSS included: self-supply systems, communal water supply systems, and public water systems. Five service level indicators (access, quality, management, cost, and reliability) were assessed using structured questionnaires, targeting WSS users and owners in two categories: owners/resident users and non-resident users. Results show that owners/resident users restricted access of non-resident users to water assets, hence reducing adequate service level. Post-collection treatment was practiced by some users, using sodium hypochlorite solutions. Management and costs of WSS are borne by owners/resident users; costs borne by non-resident users is only from purchase of water. Reliability of WSS is hampered by geology and climatic seasonal variations as some WSS dried up during the off-rain season. Poor access to water has been identified as a major challenge facing non-resident users, amplified by limited coverage area of public water supply systems.

Comparing Different Equipment and Applications in Pavement Data Collection as Part of Road Management System

Abstract National roads are the main arteries in road transport infrastructure. Therefore, all agencies or authorities responsible of road infrastructure, pay attention to road management systems. Albania is experiencing an increase in road infrastructure investments and maintenance of this road network. There have been some attempts to establish national and secondary road management systems. These systems attempt to achieve different objectives, such as the provision of an adequate level of service, the preservation of the road infrastructure, etc. A good Road Asset Management System (RAMS), helps to carry out all the actions of inventory, storage and maintenance of road assets as well as, supports the decision-making process. At present, there are several data collection devices and applications that carry out the job efficiently. The purpose of this paper is to present the analysis of the use and comparison of some equipment and Cell Phone Based Systems (MiniROMDAS, PaveProf-V2 and RoadLab_Pro) used for the road pavement data collection, necessary in the calculation of the International Roughness Index (IRI), along the national road network in Albania. The comparison is made, by analyzing the data and results obtained along a 20 km long road segment in Albania, using the various above-mentioned technologies. Also, an overview of the currently available technologies providing information that could assist managers in establishing an appropriate data collection program is given.

A new methodology to assess the remaining service life of motorway pavements at the network level from traffic speed deflectometer measurements

ABSTRACT Road agencies are looking for efficient pavement management tools to maintain adequate service levels and preserve the asset value. The traffic speed deflectometer (TSD) allows to continuously assess the structural condition of the pavement while moving at traffic speeds, thus overcoming the typical drawbacks of traditional non-destructive testing equipment. However, managing the huge amount of data deriving from TSD surveys is challenging, and there is no established method to use those data for identifying the remaining service life (RSL) of the pavement network. This study aimed at developing a new practical and reliable methodology to assess the RSL of motorway pavements at the network level from TSD measurements. The methodology is based on the use of the surface curvature index SCI300 and includes the temperature adjustment, the definition of a representative SCI300 value for each pavement section and the estimation of the residual fatigue resistance (considering bottom-up cracking as the critical distress). The methodology was implemented using the deflection data deriving from a TSD survey carried out on about 400 km of motorway pavement. The obtained RSL predictions can be used to identify the structural ranking of different pavement sections and guide budget forecasting, according to the actual maintenance and rehabilitation priorities.

A multi-period model for reorganising urban household waste recycling networks

Managing waste is a crucial challenge for modern societies. Within the UK government's ambitious environmental targets, municipal Household Waste Recycling Centres represent key facilities. However, local authority budgets are under severe strain due to reductions in central government funding. Therefore, local councils often need to perform reconfigurations of the recycling centres networks, by reducing the number of sites or their opening hours while still ensuring adequate service levels. This paper describes a novel multi-period mathematical programming model for optimising reorganisational actions within Household Waste Recycling Centre networks. The model is tested on a case study based on an English local authority, in order to demonstrate its applicability to a real-world scenario, and its role in supporting decision-makers in deciding the best way to reorganise Household Waste Recycling Centres.

The importance of fuzzy logic integrated to inventory management: case study in a company x in the industrial district of manaus

Inventory management is a practice of fundamental importance for the success of companies in the most varied segments. Companies that operate with low levels of profitability depend on efficient inventory management, under penalty of losing competitiveness. Efficient inventory maintenance is not characterized by the existence of large batches of products for prompt customer service or, on the contrary, by the lack of inventories in an attempt to minimize maintenance costs. Inventories must be managed in a balanced way to ensure an adequate level of service to customers and generate profits. This work aimed to develop a Fuzzy model for stock management of an organization, to reduce the lack of material in stock, resulting from the "lead time". The work is justified by the importance of having a management monitoring the control of inventory costs, which includes the expenses resulting from the lack of items, the costs related to the replacement of the stock, and the expenses of a stopped stock. To accomplish this, it was necessary to map the Material Purchasing Process and thus identify which were the most significant variables in inventory management. The use of Fuzzy Logic, idealized for a model like this, is to reach an inventory level close to zero, immediately before physical replacement, thus minimizing unnecessary costs. Therefore, experimental research aims to manipulate and control the research variables. The application of the developed model shows that the evaluation of Inventory Management through the Need for Replacement of Input and Type of Transport to be used through the fuzzy methodology proved to be viable to assist the desired observations, allowing to understand the impact of each linguistic variable in the research result, pointing out how company X can use the information obtained to improve the structure of its Logistics Process, thus reducing the lack of material in stock due to the lead time.

Analisis Kinerja Simpang Non-APILL (Studi Kasus: Simpang Jalan Pulau Galang – Jalan Taman Pancing – Jalan Tukad Baru)

Population growth in Denpasar City continues to increase from year to year. This indirectly causes the number of vehicle ownership in Denpasar City to continue to increase while the existing facilities are inadequate. We can see this in traffic problems such as congestion that often occurs, especially at intersections. Jalan Pulau Galang - Jalan Taman Pancing - Jalan Tukad Baru is an example of an intersection that has irregular traffic conflict points, especially during rush hours. This junction is a non APILL junction. This location was chosen as the research because in addition to the irregular traffic flow at certain hours, at this intersection there are also residential and shopping areas which trigger more congestion at this intersection. From the problems that arise at the Jalan Pulau Galang intersection - Jalan Taman Pancing - Jalan Tukad Baru, a study was carried out which aims to determine the performance and service level of the intersection. If the service level at the intersection is in the safe category, then preventive measures to avoid congestion must be analyzed. The results of the calculations that have been carried out show that the value for the intersection capacity (C) is 6,213 smp/jam with the degree of saturation (DS) being 0,363 smp/jam. The DS (Degree of Saturation) value indicates that the intersection is included in the service level category B according to the 2014 PKJI, which has stable flow characteristics, but the operating speed is starting to be limited by traffic conditions. Service level B has an NVK value between 0.20-0.44. For this reason, it is necessary to supervise the location of the intersection so that the location of the intersection still has an adequate level of service and does not increase in height to avoid severe traffic jam

Combined Management of Groundwater Resources and Water Supply Systems at Basin Scale Under Climate Change

Water stress conditions associated with population growth, climate change, and groundwater contamination, represent a significant challenge for all stakeholders in the water sector. Increasing the resilience of Water Supply Systems (WSSs) becomes of fundamental importance: along with an adequate level of service, sustainability targets must be ensured. A long-term management strategy is strictly connected to a holistic approach, based on analyses at different scales. To this end, both groundwater modeling tools and water management models, with different spatial and temporal scales, are routinely and independently employed. Here, we propose a coupled approach combining: i) groundwater models (MODFLOW) to investigate different stress scenarios, involving climate change and anthropic activities; ii) water management models (Aquator), to assess the water resources availability and the best long-term management strategy for large-scale WSS. The management models are implemented starting from input and output flows derived by groundwater models: this leads to establish a comprehensive framework usually not defined in management models and including a quantitative characterization of the aquifer. The proposed methodology, general and applicable to any study area, is here implemented to the WSS of Reggio Emilia Province, and its main groundwater resource, the Enza aquifer, considering three different stress scenarios for groundwater models (BAU, ST1, and ST2), and for management strategies (BAU, BAURV2, ST2). Among the key results, we observe that coupling the two model types: i) allows evaluating water resources availability in connection with management rules; ii) leads to examining more realistic operation choices; iii) permits planning of infrastructures at basin scale.

Complex Systems Thinking Approach to Urban Greenery to Provide Community-Tailored Solutions and Enhance the Provision of Cultural Ecosystem Services

This paper presents a GIS-based method for supporting local administrations in the design of urban green areas while taking into account the complexity of the whole system. The proposed method merges the criteria of availability, accessibility, attractiveness, usability, and suitability in a multi-level approach (city, neighborhood green area) to assist in the selection of which services within green areas to enhance from those requested by citizens. The case study is an urban park in a medium-sized Italian city (Perugia). The results demonstrate that the available urban green spaces amount to 34.7 m2 per person, but only 24% of citizens have adequate access to a green area providing at least an adequate level of service, and 18% of them are without access to any appropriately equipped green area. Furthermore, citizens have limited knowledge of their city’s urban green system as a whole. Indeed, 41% of the requested services were already available in other accessible green areas with attractive and readily available dedicated equipment. These areas were suggested as alternative solutions. To achieve a complex systems approach, our results suggest observing similar systems with various and adaptable scales and studying them as open networks composed of heterogeneous internal and external variables.

A simulation-optimization model for analyzing a demand responsive transit system for last-mile transportation: A case study in São Paulo, Brazil

Ride-hailing services, in particular Demand Responsive Transit (DRT) systems, have emerged in many cities worldwide as a potential solution to bridge the public transport supply gap. In such services, passengers whose itineraries and times are coincident to a certain degree can share vehicles that follow flexible routes to accommodate distinct boarding and alighting locations with minor disturbances to their convenience. In this context, this paper aims to evaluate the potential of a DRT as an alternative for a feeder to a trunk transport system, such as BRT (Bus Rapid Transit), or a metro or rail system as well. This is accomplished by a simulation–optimization model that allows determining, in very short time, the optimized way to serve each new transport request that arises dynamically over time. The model was applied to a first/last mile transportation system in an area adjacent to a subway station in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. We analyze and measure the impacts of different operational characteristics of supply and demand, measured in terms of service level to riders, number of vehicles, average occupation and total kilometer traveled per vehicle. The results evidence the potential of these DRT services as an alternative to complement the existing bus lines, as well as to attract users of individual transport, as they can offer adequate service level at a competitive cost.

Modeling and analysis of a cooperative service network

With the advances in technology and changes in customers’ attitude towards different service delivery formats, it is important for the service providers to deliver online services in addition to the traditional face-to-face services. In the cooperative service network presented in this study, service providers cooperate to serve online service requests received by the network in addition to their own customers. Designing and managing the cooperative network effectively increase the utilization of the involved servers, provide an adequate service for the external customers, and increase the profit for both the network and service providers. From the operational perspective, the number and utilization of the members to be included in the network and the price that will be paid to each member for a directed request are the main design questions. In order to answer these questions, we present a stochastic model that captures the dynamics of customer arrivals, assignment, and admission control. To establish this model, we first derive the solution of the dynamic admission control problem for the servers who decide how to admit their own customers and the external online customers using a Markov decision process. We then analyze the operation of the whole network with the servers who use the optimal admission control policy and obtain the system performance measures depending on the members’ operational parameters. These results are used to determine the optimal number of servers in the network and the service price to be paid to the participating servers in order to maximize the obtained profit. We show that a cooperative service network is an effective way of utilizing the idle capacity of the servers while providing an adequate service level for the external online customers and increasing the profit for both the network and service providers.

Strategies for the Preservation of Service Levels in the Inventory Management During COVID-19: A Case Study in a Company of Biosafety Products

The current global situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic has seriously impacted the ability of supply chains to achieve the availability of essential biosafety products in a timely and reliable manner. The companies producing biosafety products have experienced an unforeseen change in the demand for products, due to the international protocols of health organizations on the use of these types of products to mitigate the spread of the virus. For companies involved in these supply chains, the priority is to maintain adequate service levels in the current scenario, guaranteeing high availability at each link in order to help preserve life. This requires maintaining the articulation and flexibility of the processes in the supply chain, reflected in decision making. Despite the relevance of the problem, studies on multi-product inventory business strategies and their impact on service level and volatile demand during a pandemic are limited. This article shows the experience of a Colombian biosafety products company, which, focused on fulfilling its mission, guaranteeing customer and user satisfaction, developed strategies that made its management model of inventories management more flexible. The contribution of this proposal leads to some important knowledge that may be of interest for the management of inventories in biosafety companies that manage multiple products of great demand, volatile behavior and of high importance, which impacts on the containment of the spread of the virus in a global disruption of supply chains. The proposed strategies can be generalized to other types of companies that present similar situations.

Supporting Sustainable Virtual Network Mutations With Mystique

The abiding attempt of automation has also permeated the networks, with the ability to measure, analyze, and control themselves in an automated manner, by reacting to changes in the environment (e.g., demand). When provided with these features, networks are often labeled as “self-driving” or “autonomous”. In this regard, the provision and orchestration of physical or virtual resources are crucial for both Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees and cost management in the edge/cloud computing environment. To effectively manage the lifecycle of these resources, an auto-scaling mechanism is essential. However, traditional threshold-based and recent Machine Learning (ML)-based policies are often unable to address the soaring complexity of networks due to their centralized approach. By relying on multi-agent reinforcement learning, we propose Mystique, a solution that learns from the load on links to establish the minimal set of active network resources. As traffic demands ebb and flow, our adaptive and self-driving solution can scale up and down and also react to failures in a fully automated, flexible, and efficient manner. Our results demonstrate that the presented solution can reduce network energy consumption while providing an adequate service level, outperforming other benchmark auto-scaling approaches.

A spatial interaction model for the representation of user access to household waste recycling centres

Managing waste is a crucial challenge for modern societies. The UK government has established ambitious targets in terms of landfill diversion for household waste. Household Waste Recycling Centres represent key facilities for achieving these targets. However, Local Authority budgets are under severe strain due to reductions in central government transfers. As such, local councils often need to perform reconfigurations of the recycling centres networks, by reducing the number of sites or their opening hours while still offering adequate service levels. Central to being able to do this, is understanding the spatial patterns of access to such centres. Therefore, this paper develops a spatial interaction model aimed at examining and exploring users’ behaviour and preferences when choosing recycling centres. Specifically, an origin-constrained gravity model is developed; through a careful estimation of its attractiveness parameters, the model is capable of describing demand flows from Sheffield City Council districts to Household Waste Recycling Facilities. The results are compared to actual data obtained through a users’ survey from an English Local Authority. The high level of correlation between the results provided by the model and actual users’ preferences indicates that the model can be a valuable tool in describing users’ behaviour in accessing the service. Based on this, the model can be employed in order to estimate the impacts of modifications to the network configuration on users, performing scenario analyses and providing useful suggestions to planners.