Bilevel transportation problem in neutrosophic environment

ABSTRACT

In the current times of the predominance of COVID-19, almost all the countries are conducting inoculation drives. Given the market’s inability to compute how much to manufacture, how to transport and the frequently changing demand, the cost of safely and timely transporting the vaccines from factory to syringe is currently indeterminate. In this paper, we formulate this situation using a bilevel transportation problem with neutrosophic numbers (BLTP-NN). The problem comes from a vaccine manufacturing company where the vaccine is produced and then transported to different distribution centres from where it is further transported to various health centres for the conduction of their vaccination drive. The authors have tried to perceive this situation from two perspectives by formulating two different problems. The first problem is a bilevel linear fractional transportation problem which aims at minimizing the transportation cost in proportion to per unit maximization of quantity transported. The second problem is a bilevel indefinite quadratic transportation problem which aims at minimizing the transportation cost and depreciation cost. In both problems, cost coefficients are neutrosophic numbers along with availabilities and demands in the constraint set. These formulated bilevel transportation problems in neutrosophic environment are solved using goal programming strategy to arrive at a satisfactory solution. The relevance of this work is to help the decision makers in budgeting their finances related to the transportation by strategic disbursement leading to a smooth administration of vaccination program.