Volume 10 | Number 1 | September 2019 | ISSN 2223-4374 International Federation of Operational Research Societies NEWS From the President What’s Inside From the President Can Operations Research Contribute to Sustainability? 1 Can Operations Research contribute Grazia Speranza <[email protected]> to sustainability? Sustainability is one of the words scenario is too Editorial that nowadays often appears, small to allow 2 From the Editor! with different degrees or shades the human of relevance, in speeches of kind to slowly OR IMPACT politicians, scientists, private citizens. adapt. 2 The new frontier of Capacity & Revenue Newspapers speak of sustainability, Optimization: the Europcar Mobility companies make their products and Sustainability Group experience their production and distribution involves, in its TUTORIAL processes sustainable. Sustainability three domains, 4 Predicting the Likelihood of Being Upper usually refers to the capacity for the several other Level in Nepalese Organizations biosphere and human civilization to dimensions, coexist. The exploitation of resources, besides the environmental one. OR for Development the direction of investments, Hunger should be fought with 8 Call for submissions to the IFORS Prize the orientation of technological over one third of the world food for OR in Development 2020 development, the decisions taken by wasted. Transportation is a major 8 Home Health Care Logistics in a institutions and politics should all be source of pollution, especially with Developing Country in harmony and enhance both current cities growing everywhere. Energy and future potential to meet human should become affordable and Book Review needs and aspirations. Sustainability clean. Production and consumption 11 Operations Research in South Africa – has three interconnected domains: should become responsible, with an the first 50 years environment, economic and social. increased rate of recycled materials. OR Schools Public health should be improved. 12 ELAVIO 2019 in Lleida Greta Thunberg, born in 2003, Green companies that are equal has attracted the attention to the opportunity employers should be Conferences challenges our planet is facing, supported. 14 ALIO and INFORMS meet at Cancun for contributing to an increase of the an Operational Research Beach Party sensitivity of many towards these Achieving sustainability requires a 15 EURO 2019 Dublin challenges and hopefully enhancing huge global effort where each and the definition of action plans capable every one should give a contribution, 16 EUROPT Workshop 2019 of changing the business-as-usual small or big. Then, the question that that may lead to dramatic changes is the title of this editorial is: Can 18 EWG-ORD 2019 Dublin: that would take place in few decades. Operations Research contribute to A Move towards Sustainability Obviously, the young generations sustainability? Can we contribute 19 ECCO XXXII - The European will be more impacted by the climate to sustainability? I think we can. combinatorialists meet in Malta change than the older ones but the Operations Research is a discipline political and economic powers are not that, by vocation, looks at systems 20 Manufacturing 2019 in their hands. The climate change, and and improves their efficiency. especially the temperature increase, Energy, transportation, production, 21 XIII Metaheuristics International is reducing the size of glaciers, distribution, health are all areas where Conference increasing the level of the oceans. we have worked, improving decision Editorial Box It is changing the planet, not only making. We can give a contribution its surface, the agriculture and the to sustainability in educating our economy, but also the whole society, students towards the choice of new, with huge migrations forecasted from and not only economic, objectives. regions where lakes will dry. The We can contribute in having time frame in which such changes sustainability in mind whatever are expected in the business-as-usual problem we work on. P. 1 • IFORS NEWS September 2019 >> This involves setting prices for each type of car, based on the duration of the From the Editor rental and market conditions and managing promotions so as to ensure, as far as Luciana Buriol <[email protected]> possible, that demand matches the available I am glad to release the September Issue of IFORS News Letter! This issue starts with a number of vehicles. An important aspect is message from our President, Dr. Grazia Speranza, encouraging all of us to think about to minimize the number of free upgrades, how operations research can contribute to sustainability. In the OR Impact Section, which are provided when the category of you will find the article “The new Frontier of Capacity & Revenue Optimization: the car booked by the client is not available. Europcar Mobility Group experience”, while in the Tutorial Section you will find “Predicting the likelihood of being upper level in Nepalese organizations”. Both The need for improved processes articles summarize results from innovative research. Next, we added a call to the IFORS The mission of EMobG is to be the preferred Prize for OR in Development 2020. We invite all who have a project that fits into the “Mobility Service Company” by offering scope of the Prize to submit it! In the OR for Development Section, you will find the alternative attractive solutions to vehicle article “Home Health Care Logistics in a Developing Country”, one of the first works in ownership, with a wide range of mobility- this subject written by a group from South America. In the Book Review Section, Hans related services: vehicle-rental, chauffeur Ittman summarizes “Operations Research in South Africa – the first 50 years”. Ending services, car-sharing, scooter-sharing and this issue, we have reports of many important OR events hosted in several cities peer-to-peer car-rental. EMobG has four major around the world. Before you start Reading, please reflect upon this issue: how brands: Europcar® - the European leader in can each one of us contribute to a sustainable world, in particular considering vehicle rental services; Goldcar® - the most your OR expertise. important low-cost car-rental company in Europe; InterRent® – ‘mid-tier’ brand focused on leisure; and Ubeeqo® – one of the European Figure 1: Data Flow of the Opticar Solution Articles demonstrating direct benefits from implementing OR studies leaders in car-sharing. OR Impact anticipated rental agreements over the next 24 weeks, Sue Merchant <[email protected]>; John Ranyard <[email protected]> EMobG delivers its mobility solutions via an extensive the state of Europcar’s business over this time and daily network in 140 countries (including 20 wholly owned fleet utilisation. Many uncertainties are incorporated The New Frontier of Capacity & Revenue Optimization: subsidiaries in Europe, 2 in Australia and New Zealand, such as late returns (requested and not requested), franchises and partners). In 2018, the Group had a paid and free upgrades and cancellations. The Europcar Mobility Group Experience revenue of around €2.9bn and 12,000 employees. Fleet Optimisation – In this module fleet capacity is Barricello S, Guillen J, Ruiz P, Dellepiane U <[email protected]>, Maccarrone L, Maccioni R, Pinzuti A, Procacci E Competition is intense in the car rental industry formulated as a linear programming model but solved and the availability of increasing amounts of data, using a meta-heuristic algorithm, which simultaneously increasing computing power and improvements in optimises fleet composition and utilisation. Some user relevant software stimulated the company to seek constraints can be included, such as not transferring an improved system to support its operations. ACT cars between locations that are far apart or allocating Operations Research (ACT OR), a software company certain vehicle types to locations subject to high theft. which specializes in providing corporate decision- The output gives Infleet Optimisation (the acquisition making software using OR approaches and has been and assignment of vehicles to specific zones based established for 20 years was chosen for this task. It’s on the expected revenue, costs, demand, and other involvement resulted in the development of a system constraints; Transfer optimization (movement of vehicles in the available fleet from one zone to another. Introduction brands (from car rental to car sharing and chauffeur called Opticar. The system considers the transfer times and costs, and The car rental industry was estimated to be worth services), including the Europcar brand, which is forecast demand for each zone; and Decommission $60bn globally in 2016 and is expected to double by number one in Europe. In 2014 EMobG engaged ACT Opticar – Europcar’s fleet capacity and revenue Optimization: the removal of operating vehicles from 2022. It is highly competitive. The aim of providers is to Operations Research (ACT OR) to design and implement optimization system the fleet. have the right car, at the right location, at the right time a new system to improve fleet planning and rental price and sold at the right price. However, many uncertainties optimisation. The four components are as follows: Dynamic Price Optimisation – this module considers have to be managed by providers, including demand Forecasting Module (unconstrained): this is ACT rental prices as decision levers to enable management variability, seasonality, weather and above all, actions Overview of