Decision Science Digest: October 12, 2022

BALTIMORE, MD, October 12, 2022 –

EDITOR’S NOTE: Decision Science Digest is a periodic communique highlighting recent peer-reviewed research published by INFORMS, the largest association for the decision and data sciences, across its 17 journals. This issue highlights four press releases based on the findings of new peer-reviewed articles.

• New Research Tries to Optimize Airline Boarding Time (INFORMS journal Transportation Science)
• Combatting Human Trafficking and Violence Against Women, Going Beyond The White House (INFORMS journal Management Science)
• The Friday Effect: How the Day of the Week of a Safety Alert Announcement Saves Lives (INFORMS journal Management Science)
• Increasing the Effectiveness of Police Zones: How a New Model is Cutting Response Times and Redistributing the Workload (INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics)

Can Airline Passenger Boarding Time be Streamlined? New Research Sheds Light on the Problem

Everyone has somewhere to be, especially when they’re at the airport. New research in the INFORMS journal Transportation Science tries to optimize the time it takes people to board their flight. Finding the most effective boarding strategy can undoubtedly save time and headaches for passengers and airline staff. The researchers looked at several models and considered the time it takes passengers to settle in and store carry-on luggage. The experiments used simulation data and show that for several airplane cabin layouts, provably high-quality or even optimal solutions can be obtained within reasonable time in practice by means of a mixed-integer programming approach, most often a back to front, inside out boarding approach. Link to full article.

Government Tries to Hamper Sex-Trafficking Websites with Little Success, The Way People Are Getting Around the Law

Startling new analysis of sex-trafficking website shutdowns. It seems that, despite 2018 legislation passed by the U.S. Congress and subsequent shutdown of several websites, the commercial sex business is still thriving. New research in the INFORMS journal Management Science finds that despite the March 2018 legislation that ultimately led to Craigslist voluntarily removing their personals section and the Department of Justice seizure of Backpage.com, the market for commercial sex advertising is agile enough to disperse to offshore sites. Despite positive hopes, the shutdown of these sites did little to impact prostitution arrests and violence against women. Data shows that most advertisers and users quickly move to other commercial sex advertising portals. Link to full article.

Safety Alert! How the Day of the Week They’re Announced Makes a Difference 

Safety alerts are announcements made by health regulators warning patients and doctors about new drug-related side effects. New research in the INFORMS journal Management Science finds that not all announcements are created equally. Safety alerts announced on Fridays don’t get near the attention that alerts made on other days of the week do. This research suggests moving a Friday alert to any other weekday would reduce all drug-related side effects by 9%-12%, serious drug- related complications by 6%-15% and drug-related deaths by 22%-36%. Link to full article.

Optimizing Policing in Atlanta: How a New Model is Increasing Productivity and Cutting Response Times 

A new model to assign police patrol zones in Atlanta, Georgia, is streamlining response times and evening out officer workload. New research in the INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics develops an optimization framework for redesigning police patrol zones in an urban environment. The model integrates multiple data sources, including police incident reports, demographic surveys and traffic data. The model was implemented by the Atlanta Police Department in March 2019. Comparing data before and after the redesign, results show the new design has reduced the response time to high-priority 911 calls by 5.8% and the imbalance of police workload among Atlanta’s zones by 43%. Link to full article. 

About INFORMS 

INFORMS advances and promotes the science and technology of decision-making to save lives, save money and solve problems. As the largest association for the decision and data sciences, INFORMS members support organizations and governments at all levels as they work to transform data into information, and information into insights that lead to more efficient, effective, equitable and impactful results. INFORMS’ 10,000+ members are comprised of a diverse and robust international community of practitioners, researchers, educators and students from a variety of fields. 

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Contact:

Ashley Smith

443-757-3578

[email protected]

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