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The Region of Waterloo relies on groundwater for 80% of the water supplied to its growing population. Ontario’s Places to Grow Act (2005) designates the Region as a growth corridor, and over the next 20 years, significant development is expected. A water pipeline from Lake Erie to the Region of Waterloo is being considered as part of the Region’s strategy to ensure sufficient amounts of water for the population. The purpose of this research is to examine whether this pipeline would undermine current conservation efforts by the Region. Using a combination of questionnaires, expert interviews, and newspaper analysis, the following research questions are investigated: (1) How do Waterloo residents perceive the region’s current water supply? (2) How do their actions related to water use reflect these perceptions about water supply arrangements? (3) How might perceptions change when a pipeline is constructed to Lake Erie? (4) To what extent might this pipeline encourage consumptive rather than conservation behaviour? These questions are connected with the social demographics of age, gender, income and education, to determine which, if any, plays the largest role in determining conservation behaviour. Ten significant relationships are found regarding water supply issues, with the majority relating to age. Older respondents are more likely to believe there is an inadequate water supply in the region, and that money should be spent to increase the available supply. Older respondents are more likely to state they conserve water year round. Older respondents and male respondents are more likely to have heard about a proposed pipeline. Younger respondents are more likely to prefer reducing the demand for water, while older respondents are more likely to prefer a combination of increasing the supply and decreasing the demand. Higher educated and higher income respondents are more likely to believe access to water should be limited. Higher educated respondents are more likely to prefer decreasing the demand instead of increasing the supply. For the most part, Waterloo residents perceive the current water supply as inadequate. Some residents conserve water as a response to this, but others do not limit their use in order to compel the Region to increase supply. It is unclear how perceptions might change if a pipeline were constructed. However, it is probable that consumption would be influenced by the persistence of the Region in continuing conservation programs. It is recommended that the Region consider limiting future growth, increase the cost of water to users, and deliver variable qualities of water to residents for different functions. It is important that the Region continue implementing water conservation measures at least at the current level. It would be valuable to study other communities which have built a water pipeline to determine effects that might not be anticipated. Finally, it is important that other municipalities affected by this pipeline be consulted before its construction.

The Region of Waterloo relies on groundwater for 80% of the water supplied to its growing population. Ontario’s Places to Grow Act (2005) designates the Region as a growth corridor, and over the next 20 years, significant development is expected. A water pipeline from Lake Erie to the Region of Waterloo is being considered as part of the Region’s strategy to ensure sufficient amounts of water for the population. The purpose of this research is to examine whether this pipeline would undermine current conservation efforts by the Region. Using a combination of questionnaires, expert interviews, and newspaper analysis, the following research questions are investigated: (1) How do Waterloo residents perceive the region’s current water supply? (2) How do their actions related to water use reflect these perceptions about water supply arrangements? (3) How might perceptions change when a pipeline is constructed to Lake Erie? (4) To what extent might this pipeline encourage consumptive rather than conservation behaviour? These questions are connected with the social demographics of age, gender, income and education, to determine which, if any, plays the largest role in determining conservation behaviour. Ten significant relationships are found regarding water supply issues, with the majority relating to age. Older respondents are more likely to believe there is an inadequate water supply in the region, and that money should be spent to increase the available supply. Older respondents are more likely to state they conserve water year round. Older respondents and male respondents are more likely to have heard about a proposed pipeline. Younger respondents are more likely to prefer reducing the demand for water, while older respondents are more likely to prefer a combination of increasing the supply and decreasing the demand. Higher educated and higher income respondents are more likely to believe access to water should be limited. Higher educated respondents are more likely to prefer decreasing the demand instead of increasing the supply. For the most part, Waterloo residents perceive the current water supply as inadequate. Some residents conserve water as a response to this, but others do not limit their use in order to compel the Region to increase supply. It is unclear how perceptions might change if a pipeline were constructed. However, it is probable that consumption would be influenced by the persistence of the Region in continuing conservation programs. It is recommended that the Region consider limiting future growth, increase the cost of water to users, and deliver variable qualities of water to residents for different functions. It is important that the Region continue implementing water conservation measures at least at the current level. It would be valuable to study other communities which have built a water pipeline to determine effects that might not be anticipated. Finally, it is important that other municipalities affected by this pipeline be consulted before its construction.

Master thesis in marketing written in spring 2012 at the LinnæusUniversity, Växjö, Sweden. Authors: Lina Bengtsson and Desirée Valler Examiner: Professor Mosad Zineldin                 Tutor: Professor Anders Pehrsson Title: Demand management - Preferred options from the customer’s point of view regarding the rural hotel industry Introduction: If demand and capacity is not in line, dissatisfaction can occur among the customers. In these cases demand can be managed by demand management options in order for it to reach the wanted level. Purpose: The purpose is to identify which demand management options (DMO) that rural hotels customers’ finds significant in order to affect their usage of the service, hence, to change their demand. Delimitations: The delimitations of this paper are automation, substitute services and sales promotion, as these areas will not be handled in this paper. Methodology: This study will be approached by the deductive point of view. Further the methods to gather empirical information will be both a quantitative approached in the shape of a survey and a qualitative approach in the shape of a focus group. Conclusions: Price is of importance for rural hotels, but they could also use service differentials, which can be a winning concept. The DMO of overbooking is not as successful as the customers perceive it as something negative. Promotion can increase the demand but should be used together with other DMOs, hotels should although be careful so no negative WOM starts spreading. A negative WOM could occur if the hotel segments their customers wrongly. Suggestion for further research: Is to investigate to which degree the recommended DMOs affects the demand within rural hotel industry by practically measuring it. Further, if these DMOs also should be implemented by downtown hotels can be a ground for future research.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Arlington, 2008.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Arlington, 2008. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 226-233). Also available online.

In this thesis we analyze optimal demand management policies for stochastic systems. In the first system considered, a manufacturer decides how to manage demand from customers that differ in their priority level and willingness to pay. He has limited production capacity and predetermined prices throughout the horizon. We find an optimal production and inventory strategy that rations current and future limited capacity between customer classes through reserving inventory for the future and accepting orders now for future delivery. Next, we extend these results to the case when the customers have different tolerance to delayed fulfillment, namely, first-class customers never accept backlogging whereas second-class customers agree to wait one period for a discount. We find an optimal policy similar to the production and inventory strategy that is used for the first system based on threshold values. The third system considers a firm whose recent performance in meeting quoted leadtimes affects future demand arrivals. We assume that the probability of a customer placing an order depends on the quoted leadtime, and both customer arrivals and processing times are stochastic. When capacity of the firm is infinite, we find the optimal leadtime to quote, and when capacity is finite and leadtime is industry-dictated, we determine that the optimal demand acceptance policy does not necessarily have a nice structure. We comment on the structure of the optimal policy for a special case and develop several heuristics for the general case. The final system considered in this thesis is the Sports and Entertainment industry, where demand is managed for a season of several performances by selling season tickets initially and single events later in the selling horizon. We specifically study the optimal time to switch between these market segments dynamically as a function of the state of the system and show that the optimal switching time is a set of time thresholds that depend on the remaining inventory and time left in the horizon.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has sought to reduce expenditures by better utilizing their maintenance forces through a compressed workweek. The focus of this thesis is a before and after comparison of maintenance crews at TxDOT during a standard 5-day forty hour workweek and a compressed 4-day forty hour workweek. Compressed workweeks are work arrangements in which full-time employees are allowed to work longer days for part of the week or pay period in exchange for shorter days or a day off during the same week or pay period. This type of schedule allows for numerous benefits including increased productivity, additional time to handle personal business, less travel time, less start up and shut down time, improved morale, as well as less stress. Originally three districts were placed upon the compressed workweek but after four months of trial, three additional districts were included. Maintenance activity data from previous years was compared to data collected over the trial period to assess productivity impacts as well as vehicular travel. Surveys of maintenance crews were conducted throughout the study to address personal concerns. The results of the study were that there were no significant impacts to productivity or vehicular usage but a significant improvement in work conditions for the maintenance crews. Further assessment is recommended utilizing additional functional codes for more illustrative results. / text

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Alberta, 2010. / Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on July 7, 2010). A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Transportation Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta. Includes bibliographical references.

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