This article considers information exchange in an Integrated Product Development (IPD) environment. First, a dynamic programming model is formulated that is able to capture upstream partial information flow in a two-activity IPD process. A simple threshold policy is derived that aids the downstream activity in deciding whether to consider or ignore this upstream information as a function of information quality and its associated setup and rework penalties. Then, this formulation is expanded to model analytically, for the first time, information flow in a three-activity IPD process. In this case, the focus is on aiding the midstream activity in deciding whether to consider or ignore partial upstream information, taking into consideration downstream concerns. Because it is difficult to derive threshold policies in this case, the dynamic program has to be solved directly and then an extensive Monte Carlo simulation study is performed to analyze the behavior of the optimal policy. The simulation results suggest several important insights regarding the timing and frequency of considering partial information in an IPD environment.

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A b s t r a c t This article investigates the optimal strategy for potential investments that may be adopted by port authorities to attract more carriers. A mathematical model is formulated to represent the main criteria used by carriers to evaluate a specific port. Then, a game theory approach is used to model the competition between several port authorities to attract carriers via maximizing their utility functions. The game type suggested is Sealed-Bid with one round. The results indicate that the optimal investment strategy used by a specific port is dependent on (i) the port's current state with respect to other competing ports; (ii) resource availability in terms of manpower and funds; (iii) expected profitability and (iv) other players' reaction toward investment. This study advises the port authority on maximizing the payoff in case of winning the bid by selectively investing in the port and minimizing the potential loss in case of losing the bid by refraining from performing any investment.

This study examines how far the level of knowledge on a new public transport mode in Lebanon might affect mode choice. Indeed, passenger mode choice is a major issue associated with the effectiveness of new transport projects, as their level of effectiveness and feasibility will depend on the number of new adopters. This investigation is performed by developing mode choice models based on data collected via a questionnaire-based survey. The models were used to compare preferences among private cars, current public transport modes and a newly proposed Bus Rapid Transit system. The driving factors are divided into two categories: economic and psychological. The results reveal that explicit evaluations of several factors on the proposed transport modes yields mode choices different from direct evaluation. Besides, the structure of the utility function reveals that economic driving factors prevail over the psychological aspects, which is the opposite of what is observed with direct mode assessment. Moreover, people’s expectations of the proposed Bus Rapid Transit were significantly positive in terms of usability in addition to operational and economic reliability. This study shows that people’s level of knowledge of previous transport modes and their perceptual expectations of new travel modes must be taken into consideration in the feasibility studies of any transport implementations in the developing countries where the public transport services are discouraged.