Ownership vs Sharing Economy Models in Mobile-Integrated Services: Cost-Based Optimization from the Provider's Perspective

Mobile-integrated services (MIS), a cross-industry concept applied in healthcare, education, and administration, consists of deploying mobile units for service delivery. The approach is promoted as cost-efficient and customer centric. While the feasibility, implementation, and impact are studied in the literature, ownership schemes of mobile units have received limited attention. This paper aims to address the ownership dilemma of mobile units by developing two mathematical models for cost-effective MIS deployment. The first model considers all mobile units owned and operated by the service provider. The second adopts a mixed strategy, allowing for the temporary sharing (leasing) units when needed to minimize the total costs while satisfying demand across multiple locations overtime. A comparative analysis based on numerical example demonstrates under which conditions each ownership scheme is most advantageous.