Public-sector policy design is inherently complex: there are multiple stakeholders, multiple objectives, and ambiguous or unknown evidence regarding effective policy interventions. One response to this problem is the design of decision support systems (DSS) to help ordinary citizens as well as...

The City of Pittsburgh is facing a severe financial crisis and seeks strategies to reduce expenditures while maintaining an acceptable quality of services. Currently the Bureau of Fire accounts for nearly twenty percent of the City’s expenses, and evidence from cities of similar size to...

In this paper, we explore trade-offs between operational flexibility and operational complexity in periodic distribution problems. We consider the gains from operational flexibility in terms of vehicle routing costs and customer service benefits, and the costs of operational complexity in terms...