Winter Transport via Trucks with Chains and the Fraction of Time Spent in Accidents

Abstract

In this note, we analyze hitherto unstudied aspects of winter transport provision via trucks with chains on tires. Specifically, we first construct a discrete-time Markov chain (DTMC) model of transport provision that focuses on the movements of a representative truck in a firm’s fleet of trucks. Second, we specify the limiting probabilities of our DTMC model of truck transport. Third, we derive the fraction of time that the representative truck is involved in accidents. Finally, we solve an optimization problem whose solution tells us when the fraction of time the representative truck spends in accidents, is maximal.