The Dial-a-Ride Problem (DARP) consists of designing vehicle routes and schedules for customers with special needs and/or disabilities. The DARP with Electric Vehicles and battery swapping stations (DARP-EV) concerns scheduling a fleet of EVs to serve a set of pre-specified transport requests during a certain planning horizon. In addition, EVs can be recharged by swapping their batteries with charged ones from any battery-swap stations. We propose three enhanced Evolutionary Variable Neighborhood Search (EVO-VNS) algorithms to solve the DARP-EV. Extensive computational experiments highlight the relevance of the problem and confirm the efficiency of the proposed EVO-VNS algorithms in producing high quality solutions.
Consumer behaviour is often complex and even sometimes not economically rational. Wrongly, the first techno-economic energy planning models assumed the economic rationality hypothesis and, therefore, represented consumers’ behaviour incorrectly. Nevertheless, the current trend is to couple these models with behavioural approaches that were specially developed to describe the real consumer choices. A novel approach was recently proposed, where a classical energy model is coupled with a share of choice model. This new approach has however two weaknesses. First, the share of choice increases the computational complexity as it necessitates additional binary variables for the modelling. Second, for complex models, the inclusion of the share of choice can lead to non-linearity and hence to severe computational problems. In the present paper, we propose to improve this method by externalizing the share of choice. Doing so, the number of binary variable will be reduced and the linearity property will be kept even for complex models.
In the context of home healthcare services, patients may need to be visited multiple times by different healthcare specialists who may use a fleet of heterogeneous vehicles. In addition, some of these visits may need to be synchronized with each other for performing a treatment at the same time. We call this problem the Heterogeneous Fleet Vehicle Routing Problem with Synchronized visits (HF-VRPS). It consists of planning a set of routes for a set of light duty vehicles running on alternative fuels. We propose three population-based hybrid Artificial Bee Colony metaheuristic algorithms for the HF-VRPS. These algorithms are tested on newly generated instances and on a set of homogeneous VRPS instances from the literature. Besides producing quality solutions, our experimental results illustrate the trade-offs between important factors, such as CO2 emissions and driver wage. The computational results also demonstrate the advantages of adopting a heterogeneous fleet rather than a homogeneous one for the use in home healthcare services.
Environmental taxes are often underexploited. This paper analyses the effectiveness of a garbage tax, assessing its effects on multiple outcomes as well as its acceptability. We study how a Supreme Court decision, mandating the Swiss Canton of Vaud to implement a tax on garbage, affects garbage production and beliefs about the tax. We adopt a difference-in-differences approach exploiting that parts of Vaud already implemented a garbage tax before the mandate. Pricing garbage by the bag (PGB) is highly effective, reducing unsorted garbage by 40%, increasing recycling of aluminium and organic waste, without causing negative spillovers on adjacent regions. The effects of PGB seem very persistent over time. Our assessment of PGB looks very favourable. It may surprise that PGB is not implemented more often. Hence, we look at people's perceptions. We find that people are very concerned with PGB ex ante. Public opposition seems to be the main obstacle to PGB. However, implementing PGB reduces concerns with effectiveness and fairness substantially. After implementing PGB, people accept 70% higher garbage taxes compared to before PGB. We argue that environmental taxes could be much more diffused, if people had the chance to experience their functioning and correct their beliefs.
Le projet "Grand Genève" peine à créer autour de lui un sentiment d'identification fort. La collaboration entre le canton de Genève, le canton de Vaud et les départements de la Haute-Savoie et de l'Ain reste depuis 2005 une entreprise qui apparaît lointaine et détachée de toute notion affective aux yeux de la population. L'étude des discours politiques et des textes institutionnels et médiatiques en lien avec le projet franco-valdo-genevois constitue ici un symptôme révélateur de cette situation.
De nombreux organismes de financement exigent la bonne gouvernance des données de la recherche afin d’en garantir la traçabilité et la pérennisation ainsi que la réutilisation des connaissances générées. Dans ce cadre, SwissUniversities soutient le projet DLCM : un projet d’envergure nationale visant à mettre à disposition de l’ensemble de la communauté de la recherche suisse des services de gestion de données de la recherche. L’enquête conduite durant le pré-projet a permis d’identifier les rôles et tâches correspondant à chaque étape du cycle de vie des données de la recherche. Il en ressort que la mise en oeuvre de telles solutions implique l’intégration des principes archivistiques et notamment la nécessité de mutualiser les bonnes pratiques de la gestion des données de la recherche développées dans des contextes scientifiques, disciplinaires et institutionnels spécifiques. Cette présentation expose les solutions en matière de transfert de connaissances sur trois axes : 1) conseil et service d’appui, 2) formation développée au profil des chercheurs et professionnels de l'information, et 3) intégration des enseignements reliés à la gestion des données de la recherche au sein des programmes de Sciences de l'information, permettant ainsi aux étudiants fraîchement formés d’assurer la pérennité de ce savoir pour les générations futures.
Economic theory assumes that willingness to pay (WTP) increases with the quantity of the consumed good. This implies that there should be a scope effect in contingent valuation studies. However, in previous issues of Ecological Economics, several authors criticized the contingent valuation (CV) method for the absence of such effect or its inadequacy. In this paper, we contribute to this ongoing debate by proposing to systematically apply several WTP statistical distribution assumptions to test for scope effects and check its plausibility, following Whitehead’s (2016) recent recommendations. We perform this approach using data from a Swiss case study assessing the WTP for an increased surface of forest reserves. We find that both mean WTP and scope effects are sensitive to the statistical distribution assumption. Regarding plausibility, scope elasticities provide mixed result and also depend on the assumed statistical distribution of WTP. For small sample size CV studies, a non-parametric analysis, a spike model or an open-ended format can thus be better suited to reveal scope effects than the classical parametric dichotomous choice analysis. We thus recommend to systematically apply several statistical distribution assumptions of WTP to test for scope effects and their plausibility.
Growing requirements for accountability and risk management put decentralized models of public governance under pressure. This article investigates the drivers for change from a completely decentralized, network-oriented model to a more centralized, and procedural governance model of school restaurants in a Swiss city. It focuses on the pressures and challenges that this municipality faces in terms of risks and accountability in order to identify the conditions in which network governance can be successful. We applied a qualitative approach that combined conducting 25 semi-structured interviews of main stakeholders and analyzing documentation. We found that increased demand for school meals from families, the perception of increasing exposure to insufficiently managed risks associated with growing accountability requirements constitute the main drivers for change to the centralization of certain risk-sensitive, costly, and low social purpose activities, thus providing the municipality authorities with more control over the system while preserving the associative function.
In this paper, we examine the efficiency of the sort done by the Swiss lower secondary school tracking system, looking at students’ outcomes in dual vocational education and training (VET)—the most common education type at the upper secondary level in the country. We discuss a simple Ricardian model about the process of school tracking based on the absolute advantage (i.e., the ability) of students in abstract learning, as opposed to contextualised learning which is more decisive in dual VET. The mismatch created by the tracking system for certain types of students is key to explain the relative track effect on outcomes in dual VET. Using administrative panel data for the Canton of Geneva, we estimate a series of zero inflated models. All results support the assumption of a miss-allocation of students to lower secondary school tracks. We thus conclude that the efficiency of the sort related to the tracking system could be improved, were students sorted on the basis of their comparative and not absolute advantage in each form of learning.
Les auteurs mènent une évaluation contingente sur un échantillon représentatif de la population pour estimer la disponibilité à payer (DAP) pour un programme de création de nouvelles réserves forestières en Suisse. Le scénario prévoit des restrictions d’accès aux zones forestières en question, raison pour laquelle l’analyse porte essentiellement sur les valeurs de non-usage, en particulier les valeurs d’existence. L’analyse paramétrique et non paramétrique des réponses au choix dichotomique (Single Bounded Dichotomous Choice) indique une DAP moyenne de 470 CHF à 500 CHF (entre 390 et 415 EUR environ) par année et par ménage. Les auteurs étudient le biais de sélection engendré par les réponses protestataires et constatent qu’il ne modifie pas statistiquement la DAP. L’analyse des déterminants de la DAP indique que l’effet de revenu est positif mais limité par un seuil et que les résidents urbains sont plus enclins à accepter de payer pour financer le programme.
