Foreign markets expansion for air medical transport business

<p>Air medical transport has gained increasing popularity in modern society. However, the global market of this industry has not been fully explored either in theory or in practice. This research assesses the medical aviation market and identifies the most suitable regions for a private air transport company to expand its business on a global scale. We combine the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the grey number (GN) theorem to analyse the potential foreign market. Compared with conventional methods, the proposed model mitigates the adverse effects of uncertainty while providing a practical approach that considers management’s subjective judgements. The integrated model is comprehensive and flexible for assessing the demand for air medical service in different parts of the world. In addition to the air jet service industry, the GN-AHP model can be generalised to evaluate many other markets and industries.</p

Trust utility function.

<p>(a) and (b) depict the trust utility function impacted by parameters <i>α</i> and <i>β</i>. Suppose the minimum and the maximum trust degrees are 0 and 1 respectively, and by adjusting <i>α</i> and <i>β</i>, we could change the function form.</p

The six sets of functions for the least square method and their relevant optimization results.

<p>The six sets of functions for the least square method and their relevant optimization results.</p

The comparison of the combinations of <i>b</i>_<i>j</i> generated by using the four sets of functions for the manager selection problem.

<p>The comparison of the combinations of <i>b</i>_<i>j</i> generated by using the four sets of functions for the manager selection problem.</p

Aggregated IDPRs between neighboring candidates in the manager selection problem.

<p>Aggregated IDPRs between neighboring candidates in the manager selection problem.</p

Impact of β of accuracy.

<p>(a) and (b) depict the MAE and RMSE fractions of 100 users, 200 users and 300 users for QoS values at the fixed expectation <i>L</i>_<i>max</i> = 2 and <i>δ</i> = 2, where the parameter <i>β</i> is varied from -15 to -3 in increment of 1.</p

Rankings of three methods.

<p>Rankings of three methods.</p

Trust Relationship.

<p>(a), (b) and (c) depict direct, indirect, and hybrid trust respectively, where A is the target user. B, C, and D are other users which are trusted by A.</p

Possibility matrix of the five candidates in the manager selection problem.

<p>Possibility matrix of the five candidates in the manager selection problem.</p

The comparison of the combinations of <i>a</i>_<i>j</i> generated by using the four sets of functions for the manager selection problem.

<p>The comparison of the combinations of <i>a</i>_<i>j</i> generated by using the four sets of functions for the manager selection problem.</p