关键词: 运筹学, 能力规划, 粒子群算法, 汽车租赁短期车辆配置

Abstract: How to allocate and schedule vehicles rationally is one of the main considerations for the operations management of car rental companies. Rational allocation and scheduling is also the effective way that can increase the car rental rates and profits. In this paper, with a view to the current key operation features of domestic car rental companies, for instance, lack of historical data, short lead time for booking, short rental term,and short distance between the stores, we consider the frequent and complicated short-term fleet deployment problem. We present the formulation of a random expectation model for single-day deployment problem, use a reasonable method for model decomposition, select the particle swarm algorithm to solve the sub-models, and demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of this approach by a numerical example. This approach can help the managers of car rental companies make the right decisions, improve customer satisfaction, and in the same time, increase rental rates and profits.

Key words: operations research, capacity planning, particle swarm optimization, short-term fleet deployment in car rental industry