The paper investigates the potential of urban transit buses to provide an early market for hydrogen proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEM FCs) in road transport. System Dynamics has already been used to explore the transition towards the large scale use of hydrogen fuel cells in road transport as a whole. Given the importance of establishing early and niche markets first, on the route to mainstream markets, this paper focuses on one early market in road transport which is considered to be particularly important: urban transit buses. A System Dynamics model has been developed in order to address this particular market in detail. The model is currently still being refined; however results generated so far suggest that the market uptake of PEM FC buses will not be rapid and will require significant public support.
In this brief communication, we argue for more systematic and self-conscious attention, within the field of system dynamics, to the process of knowledge sharing for the purposes of model construction. After explaining our rationale, we provide a number of examples showing how various groups of people---often those with central roles in the problems being modeled---are marginalized, their voices mute or silent. We recognize the valuable work of a number of SD modelers, emphasizing their work in western, often corporate, worlds. However, there are special problems that emerge when important members of the would-be client population are comparatively powerless, under-educated or even illiterate, as is the case in many international natural resource contexts---contexts likely to become more important as attempts to cope with climate change increase. We then provide some practical suggestions for addressing such communication problems. We believe that SD can be of great value in the analysis of natural resource conflicts, climate change mitigation and adaptation, the development of improved management systems, and in policy formulation and evaluation. The anthropological perspective may provide insights that will allow for better integration of the views of marginalized peoples into SD models.
An earlier Conference paper used a small model to illustrate oscillations in local responses to health disparities. It was noted that further work would address medium term trends and thresholds shaping public action to eliminate health disparities. This paper begins to address those issues using Heckathorns model of The Dynamics and Dilemmas of Collective Action. Among many other things the model illustrates the implications of hypotheses related to the relative fitness of voluntary action, norms of reciprocity and selective incentives or sanctions. The hypotheses can be used to explore implications of the governance variable in the causal loop diagram adopted by the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health. The conclusion is that the model (a) provides a framework for analysing elite responses evident in decisions made and avoided by governance groups with duties to promote public health, and (b) has the theoretical depth necessary to be recognised as a canonical situation model as defined by David Lane.
The very poor, in drylands of India, survive because of vital ecosystem services from forest commons. Economic and environmental uncertainties and institutional variations governing ecosystems intensify and complicate the linkages between household poverty and dryland forest commons. These economic ties to local ecosystems not only affect the biophysical properties of a forest commons but also how people organize their livelihoods at the household and community level that further influence local ecosystems. We applied system dynamics modeling to examine forest ecosystems and livelihoods in a dryland village in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, India. We do systems dynamic modeling with key stakeholders the villagers, using traditional participatory action research techniques combined with group model building. Simulation results replicate the dynamic behavior of fuelwood availability over time as perceived by the community. It also shows that new institutional arrangements regarding extraction of fuelwood work however only address the symptom and shift the pressure of resource demand to adjacent areas. Participating in National Rural Employment programs helps reduce the dependency on fuelwood for income however the domestic need for energy still drives the extraction of fuelwood. The extended non-simulating model shows the endogenous mechanism of implementation of the new institutional arrangements.
This article describes the results of a research in Information Science field that aimed to verify how System Dynamics could be applied to manage, in a systemic perspective, the information of risk factors in Pension Funds assets and liabilities management (ALM) processes. Delphi technique was used to get data and to identify risk factors with two financial managers and actuaries from 20 Brazilian Pension Funds. By system dynamics, system thinking and agent based modelling techniques it was possible to represent factors cause and effect relations in order to get a function of their expenses and the actual and future payments of the retirements. The conclusions propose a methodology combining these three approaches and show some particularities and benefits of system dynamics to model financial and actuarial assumptions in such organizations and in Information Science research.
Clinical risk management has gained an increasing relevance because of the higher monetary and no monetary effects of clinical errors on healthcare companies performance. For this reason, different risk management techniques from the industrial sector have been adopted by managers of healthcare companies in order to reduce the occurrences of errors and their relative impacts.
Development of software is a dynamic and complex problem. A number of software development methodologies exist to enable software to be produced effectively. Software development methodologies, such as Waterfall and Agile consist of a set of activities that are carried out in the production of software. Activities include Requirement Capture, Design, Development and Testing. Elements of key software development tasks can be automated to improve quality and free up resource capacity. For example, performing software tests can be a laborious activity which if automated can be carried out quickly and repeatedly without error. However, developing automation takes time and is more cost effective for applications with a long shelf life.
This paper presents a study on the penetration of Distributed Generation (DG) under the consideration of a proposal for trading, environmental, and technical incentives, in the Colombian power system. To quantify the technical incentives, we simulated a part of the Colombian grid presents some busbars, low levels of voltage. We connect the busbars "problem", distributed generation and we found an increase in voltage that in a controlled manner can to help to better quality and continuity of electricity supply. Environmental and trade incentives were quantified using international experiences. In addition, we built a system dynamics model to evaluation the complete proposal. We found that the current incentives presented in the Colombian regulation such as tax breaks are insufficient to cover the total costs. Moreover, environmental incentives can be an efficient way to promote renewable energy use in Colombia, in order to achieve, more generating capacity with less pollution indices; and technical incentives in conjunction with environmental incentives can improve further the growth of DG in Colombia. Thus, the DG diffusion become an additional tool for the operator of the interconnected system to make voltage control, improve the quality, and security of electrical power systems.
The emissions of greenhouse gases have become a great worldwide concern due to their effects on climate change. This led to determine, through the Kyoto Protocol, goals to decrease at least 5% of the GHGs by 2012, with respect to the 1990 levels. This agreement established three explicit mechanisms: joint implementation, clean development mechanism and emissions trading. In this context, the European Union created an Emissions Trading Scheme EU ETS (EU Emissions Trading Scheme) that committed 73% of the global carbon market in 2009. Given that the electricity sector is the main contributor of GHGs, it is important to assess the impact of the EU ETS on this sector. This article undertakes this task with the support of a system dynamics model, using the United Kingdom as a case study. Preliminary results indicate that even under a scenario of low prices for emission allowances this would induce significant changes in the installed capacity of the electricity sector, replacing fossil-based technologies by cleaner ones, such as wind and nuclear energy; and also significant reductions of CO2 emissions.
The Portuguese Energy Policy considers the development of a commercially viable and competitive market for energy performance contracting (EPC) as a main mechanism to achieve the objectives of energy efficiency improvement. This paper proposes a study to investigate how to achieve widespread adoption of energy performance contracting by means of system dynamics modelling and simulation. To explore and gather insights on this question, a system dynamics model representing the system of the Portuguese EPC market at industry level will be created. The simulation of that model will provide a helpful basis for analysing and explaining the development of key variables, and accel-erating learning on the managerial, organizational and political adaptation processes that foster the diffusion of EPC adoption. The first phase of this research project aims at identifying and analysing the key factors and critical cause-effect relations that drive the adoption of EPC. With this purpose, a qualitative content analysis on relevant documents was performed and a set of interviews was conducted. That data was ana-lysed to capture the critical variables and its interrelation to formulate a preliminary representation of the system structure as stock and flow diagrams.