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Capacity management of migrant accommodation centers using approximate dynamic programming

G�kalp, Elvan; Cakir, M. Selim; Kougkoulos, Ioannis

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Authors

Elvan G�kalp

M. Selim Cakir

Ioannis Kougkoulos



Abstract

Irregular migration has become a major macro-economic and political challenge. Due to rising political conflicts and income inequality across the world, the number of migrants is expected to increase exponentially over the coming decade. Thus, it is of critical importance to effectively use the limited resources allocated to humanitarian operations for irregular migration. In this paper we model the problem of capacity management and migrant transfers within a network of migrant accommodation centres with stochastic dynamic programming. Our study extends the literature on stochastic modelling and humanitarian operations by applying Approximate Dynamic Programming (ADP) into a new context. The model is translatable in other similar migratory routes and locations around the world where governments need to deal with uncertain numbers of irregular migrants. We test our approach on five Greek islands which have been the main migrant arrival points during the European Migrant Crisis. The results show that ADP provides a better computational performance than a simple myopic heuristic. The sensitivity analysis gives insights to the decision-makers about the impact of parameter values on the policies.

Citation

Gökalp, E., Cakir, M. S., & Kougkoulos, I. (2021). Capacity management of migrant accommodation centers using approximate dynamic programming. Journal of the Operational Research Society, https://doi.org/10.1080/01605682.2021.1907242

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 15, 2021
Online Publication Date May 13, 2021
Publication Date May 13, 2021
Deposit Date Aug 4, 2021
Publicly Available Date Aug 6, 2021
Journal Journal of the Operational Research Society
Print ISSN 0160-5682
Electronic ISSN 1476-9360
Publisher Taylor and Francis
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/01605682.2021.1907242
Keywords Humanitarian operations; Sustainable Development Goals; Strategic planning; Stochastic Programming; Dynamic Programming
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5954742
Publisher URL https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2021.1907242

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