We discuss the solution of complex multistage decision problems using methods that are based on the idea of policy iteration (PI), i.e., start from some base policy and generate an improved policy. Rollout is the simplest method of this type, where just one improved policy is generated. We can view PI as repeated application of rollout, where the rollout policy at each iteration serves as the base policy for the next iteration. In contrast with PI, rollout has a robustness property: it can be applied on-line and is suitable for on-line replanning. Moreover, rollout can use as base policy one of the policies produced by PI, thereby improving on that policy. This is the type of scheme underlying the prominently successful AlphaZero chess program. In this paper we focus on rollout and PI-like methods for problems where the control consists of multiple components each selected (conceptually) by a separate agent. This is the class of multiagent problems where the agents have a shared objective function, and a shared and perfect state information. Based on a problem reformulation that trades off control space complexity with state space complexity, we develop an approach, whereby at every stage, the agents sequentially (one-at-a-time) execute a local rollout algorithm that uses a base policy, together with some coordinating information from the other agents. The amount of total computation required at every stage grows linearly with the number of agents. By contrast, in the standard rollout algorithm, the amount of total computation grows exponentially with the number of agents. Despite the dramatic reduction in required computation, we show that our multiagent rollout algorithm has the fundamental cost improvement property of standard rollout: it guarantees an improved performance relative to the base policy. We also discuss autonomous multiagent rollout schemes that allow the agents to make decisions autonomously through the use of precomputed signaling information, which is sufficient to maintain the cost improvement property, without any on-line coordination of control selection between the agents. For discounted and other infinite horizon problems, we also consider exact and approximate PI algorithms involving a new type of one-agent-at-a-time policy improvement operation. For one of our PI algorithms, we prove convergence to an agent-by-agent optimal policy, thus establishing a connection with the theory of teams. For another PI algorithm, which is executed over a more complex state space, we prove convergence to an optimal policy. Approximate forms of these algorithms are also given, based on the use of policy and value neural networks. These PI algorithms, in both their exact and their approximate form are strictly off-line methods, but they can be used to provide a base policy for use in an on-line multiagent rollout scheme.
Background While advances have been made in HIV prevention and treatment, new HIV infections continue to occur. The introduction of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) as an additional HIV prevention option for those at high risk of HIV may change the landscape of the HIV epidemic, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, which bears the greatest HIV burden. METHODS: This paper details Kenya's experience of PrEP rollout as a national public sector program. The process of a national rollout of PrEP guidance, partnerships, challenges, lessons learnt and progress related to national scale up of PrEP in Kenya, as of 2018, is described. National rollout of PrEP was strongly lead by the government, and work was executed through a multidisciplinary, multi-organisation dedicated team. This required reviewing available evidence, providing guidance to health providers, integration into existing logistic and health information systems, robust communication and community engagement. Mapping of the response showed that subnational levels had existing infrastructure but required targeted resources to catalyse PrEP provision. Rollout scenarios were developed and adopted, with prioritisation of 19 counties focusing on high incidence area and high potential PrEP users to maximise impact and minimise costs. RESULTS: PrEP is now offered in over 900 facilities countrywide. There are currently over 14000 PrEP users 1 year after launching PrEP. CONCLUSIONS: Kenya becomes the first African country to rollout PrEP as a national program, in the public sector. This case study will provide guidance for low- and middle-income countries planning the rollout of PrEP in response to both generalised and concentrated epidemics.
We develop restocking-based rollout policies to make real-time, dynamic routing decisions for the vehicle routing problem with stochastic demand and duration limits. Leveraging dominance results, we develop a computationally tractable method to estimate the value of an optimal restocking policy along a fixed route. Embedding our procedure in rollout algorithms, we show restocking-based rollout outperforms a priori-based rollout, demonstrating the value of explicitly considering preemptive capacity replenishment in a rollout approach for dynamic routing. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of basic local search versus more sophisticated mechanisms for the heuristic component of the rollout procedure.
We develop a family of rollout policies based on fixed routes to obtain dynamic solutions to the vehicle routing problem with stochastic demand and duration limits (VRPSDL). In addition to a traditional one-step rollout policy, we leverage the notions of the pre- and post-decision state to distinguish two additional rollout variants. We tailor our rollout policies by developing a dynamic decomposition scheme that achieves high quality solutions to large problem instances with reasonable computational effort. Computational experiments demonstrate that our rollout policies improve upon the performance of a rolling horizon procedure and commonly employed fixed-route policies, with improvement over the latter being more substantial.
Abstract Despite progress in clinical care for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) 1 , population-wide interventions are still crucial to manage the pandemic, which has been aggravated by the emergence of new, highly transmissible variants. In this study, we combined the SIDARTHE model 2 , which predicts the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infections, with a new data-based model that projects new cases onto casualties and healthcare system costs. Based on the Italian case study, we outline several scenarios: mass vaccination campaigns with different paces, different transmission rates due to new variants and different enforced countermeasures, including the alternation of opening and closure phases. Our results demonstrate that non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have a higher effect on the epidemic evolution than vaccination alone, advocating for the need to keep NPIs in place during the first phase of the vaccination campaign. Our model predicts that, from April 2021 to January 2022, in a scenario with no vaccine rollout and weak NPIs ( $${\cal{R}}_0$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>R</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>0</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:math> = 1.27), as many as 298,000 deaths associated with COVID-19 could occur. However, fast vaccination rollouts could reduce mortality to as few as 51,000 deaths. Implementation of restrictive NPIs ( $${\cal{R}}_0$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>R</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>0</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:math> = 0.9) could reduce COVID-19 deaths to 30,000 without vaccinating the population and to 18,000 with a fast rollout of vaccines. We also show that, if intermittent open–close strategies are adopted, implementing a closing phase first could reduce deaths (from 47,000 to 27,000 with slow vaccine rollout) and healthcare system costs, without substantive aggravation of socioeconomic losses.
The paper considers the single vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands. While most of the literature has studied the a priori solution approach, this work focuses on computing a reoptimization-type routing policy. This is obtained by sequentially improving a given a priori solution by means of a rollout algorithm. The resulting rollout policy appears to be the first computationally tractable algorithm for approximately solving the problem under the reoptimization approach. After describing the solution strategy and providing properties of the rollout policy, the policy behavior is analyzed by conducting a computational investigation. Depending on the quality of the initial solution, the rollout policy obtains 1% to 4% average improvements on the a priori approach with a reasonable computational effort.
Delays in product rollout can pose significant problems for international companies seeking to introduce new products across many countries. Although past research has identified several key drivers of international product rollout delays, our understanding of the interrelationships among external environmental, internal organizational, new product project and product‐specific factors remains limited. In spite of the critical importance of new products in sustaining firms’ competitiveness in both domestic and international markets, research into the antecedents of product rollout timeliness have, to date, been under‐explored. Here, poses a conceptual model that captures the antecedents of international new product rollout timeliness. The model explains the external and internal environmental drivers, the potential relationships among these, and impacts on rollout time efficiencies. Draws attention to the need for more research into what is considered a highly complex and challenging business activity – the management of new product development and launch in international markets.
Our objective in this paper is to measure the impact (valence, volume, and variance) of national online user reviews on designated market area (DMA)-level local geographic box office performance of movies. We account for three complications with analyses that use national-level aggregate box office data: (i) aggregation across heterogeneous markets (spatial aggregation), (ii) serial correlation as a result of sequential release of movies (endogenous rollout), and (iii) serial correlation as a result of other unobserved components that could affect inferences regarding the impact of user reviews. We use daily box office ticket sales data for 148 movies released in the United States during a 16-month period (out of the 874 movies released) along with user review data from the Yahoo! Movies website. The analysis also controls for other possible box office drivers. Our identification strategy rests on our ability to identify plausible instruments for user ratings by exploiting the sequential release of movies across markets—because user reviews can only come from markets where the movie has previously been released, exogenous variables from previous markets would be appropriate instruments in subsequent markets. In contrast with previous studies that have found that the main driver of box office performance is the volume of reviews, we find that it is the valence that seems to matter and not the volume. Furthermore, ignoring the endogenous rollout decision does not seem to have a big impact on the results from our DMA-level analysis. When we carry out our analysis with aggregated national data, we obtain the same results as those from previous studies, i.e., that volume matters but not the valence. Using various market-level controls in the national data model, we attempt to identify the source of this difference. By conducting our empirical analysis at the DMA level and accounting for prerelease advertising, we can classify DMAs based on their responsiveness to firm-initiated marketing effort (advertising) and consumer-generated marketing (online word of mouth). A unique feature of our study is that it allows marketing managers to assess a DMA's responsiveness along these two dimensions. The substantive insights can help studios and distributors evaluate their future product rollout strategies. Although our empirical analysis is conducted using motion picture industry data, our approach to addressing the endogeneity of reviews is generalizable to other industry settings where products are sequentially rolled out.
Test sequencing is a binary identification problem wherein one needs to develop a minimal expected cost testing procedure to determine which one of a finite number of possible failure sources, if any, is present. The problem can be solved optimally using dynamic programming or AND/OR graph search methods (AO/sup */, CF, and HS). However, for large systems, the associated computation with dynamic programming or AND/OR graph search methods is substantial, due to the rapidly increasing number of OR nodes (denoting ambiguity states) and AND nodes (denoting tests) in the search graph. In order to overcome the computational explosion, the one-step or multistep lookahead heuristic algorithms have been developed to solve the test sequencing problem. In this paper, we propose to apply rollout strategies, which can be combined with the one-step or multistep lookahead heuristic algorithms, in a computationally more efficient manner than the optimal strategies, to obtain solutions superior to those using the one-step or multistep lookahead heuristic algorithms. The rollout strategies are illustrated and tested using a range of real-world systems. We show computational results, which suggest that the information-heuristic based rollout policies are significantly better than other rollout policies based on Huffman coding and entropy.
Risk communication is a vital part of any risk management strategy but has become even more important in the time of the COVID-19 global health crisis. In recent months, nations across Europe have begun to consider strategies for rolling out vaccines, which is widely seen as the way to overcome high death rates and widespread lockdowns over the course of 2020. In most European nations, vaccinations are not mandatory and thus public willingness to be vaccinated against COVID-19 must be high to achieve lofty goals of reaching herd immunity from the virus. This paper evaluates current communication strategies on vaccine rollouts in several European nations: the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland. Following an outline of the history of vaccination issues and unique public vaccine hesitancy profiles in each nation, an overview on current risk communication strategies around the vaccine rollout are offered, focusing on two key areas: (1) communication of the vaccine rollout timeline and ‘expectations management’, and (2) communication of which groups are to be prioritised for any vaccine. From the findings of the paper, it is recommended that nations aiming to promote high vaccine uptake and avoid trust-destroying events: promote informed consent amongst their citizens; are cautious in optimism and manage expectations appropriately; follow scientific advice to vaccine rollout strategies; disseminate and administer the vaccine using local trusted doctors, GPs and nurses; are open and honest about when people will get a vaccine and uncertainties associated with them.
As of the end of 2020, the State of Israel, with a population of 9.3 million, had administered more COVID-19 vaccine doses than all countries aside from China, the US, and the UK. Moreover, Israel had administered almost 11.0 doses per 100 population, while the next highest rates were 3.5 (in Bahrain) and 1.4 (in the United Kingdom). All other countries had administered less than 1 dose per 100 population.While Israel's rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations was not problem-free, its initial phase had clearly been rapid and effective. A large number of factors contributed to this early success, and they can be divided into three major groups.The first group of factors consists of long-standing characteristics of Israel which are extrinsic to health care. They include: Israel's small size (in terms of both area and population), a relatively young population, relatively warm weather in December 2020, a centralized national system of government, and well-developed infrastructure for implementing prompt responses to large-scale national emergencies.The second group of factors are also long-standing, but they are health-system specific. They include: the organizational, IT and logistical capacities of Israel's community-based health care providers, the availability of a cadre of well-trained, salaried, community-based nurses who are directly employed by those providers, a tradition of effective cooperation between government, health plans, hospitals, and emergency care providers - particularly during national emergencies; and support tools and decisionmaking frameworks to support vaccination campaigns.The third group consists of factors that are more recent and are specific to the COVID-19 vaccination effort. They include: the mobilization of special government funding for vaccine purchase and distribution, timely contracting for a large amount of vaccines relative to Israel's population, the use of simple, clear and easily implementable criteria for determining who had priority for receiving vaccines in the early phases of the distribution process, a creative technical response that addressed the demanding cold storage requirements of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, and well-tailored outreach efforts to encourage Israelis to sign up for vaccinations and then show up to get vaccinated.While many of these facilitating factors are not unique to Israel, part of what made the Israeli rollout successful was its combination of facilitating factors (as opposed to each factor being unique separately) and the synergies it created among them. Moreover, some high-income countries (including the US, the UK, and Canada) are lacking several of these facilitating factors, apparently contributing to the slower pace of the rollout in those countries.
This paper explores how projects that can be considered as repeatable and replicable in a sequence of deliverables over a period of time can be planned and executed (rolled out) in a way that maximizes knowledge transfer and production from one execution to the next. A variety of management disciplines were reviewed to understand the way that project and program rollouts are treated in IT, product development, organizational learning, and manufacturing literature. These reviews enabled the development of a conceptual model to describe how planning and implementing the rollout of a product or service can be more knowledge-focused and an accompanying capability maturity model. Several examples from real life, including one experienced by one of the authors, were used to illustrate and test the conceptual model. The model integrates knowledge management, change control, and planning in a way that can develop organizational learning and the authors assert that this can improve productivity and both tangible and intangible returns to those that follow the model. An accompanying capability maturity model is also presented. The conceptual model, while initially tested against several real-life cases, needs to be tested against a new set of projects as an action learning research project in order to more fully develop knowledge of the dynamics of learning and improvement in rollout projects. The implication is that when project managers undervalue important learning aspects of phased rollouts, they may miss important organizational learning opportunities.
Despite 5G still being embryonic in its development, there is already a quest for evidence to support decision-making in government and industry. Although there is still considerable technological, economic and behavioural uncertainty, exploration of how the potential rollout may take place both spatially and temporally is required for effective policy formulation. Consequently, the cost, coverage and rollout implications of 5G networks across Britain are explored by extrapolating 4G LTE and LTE-Advanced characteristics for the period 2020–2030. We focus on ubiquitous ultrafast broadband of 50 Mbps and test the impact of annual capital intensity, infrastructure sharing and reducing the end-user speed in rural areas to either 10 or 30 Mbps. For the business-as-usual scenario we find that 90% of the population is covered with 5G by 2027, but coverage is unlikely to reach the final 10% due to exponentially increasing costs. Moreover, varying annual capital intensity or deploying a shared small cell network can greatly influence the time taken to reach the 90% threshold, with these changes mostly benefiting rural areas. Importantly, simply by integrating new and existing spectrum, a network capable of achieving 10 Mbps per rural user is possible, which is comparable to the UK's current fixed broadband Universal Service Obligation. We contribute to the literature by quantifying the effectiveness of the spatial and temporal rollout of 5G under different policy options.
The present paper dwells on the role of green hydrogen in the transition towards climate-neutral economies and reviews the central challenges for its emancipation as an economically viable source of energy. The study shows that countries with a substantial share of renewables in the energy mix, advanced natural gas pipeline infrastructure, and an advanced level of technological and economic development have a comparative advantage for the wider utilization of hydrogen in their national energy systems. The central conclusion of this review paper is that a green hydrogen rollout in the developed and oil-exporting developing and emerging countries is not a risk for the rest of the world in terms of the increasing technological disparities and conservation of underdevelopment and concomitant socio-economic problems of the Global South. The targets anchored in Paris Agreement, but even more in the EU Green Deal and the European Hydrogen Strategy will necessitate a substantial rollout of RESs in developing countries, and especially in the countries of the African Union because of the prioritization of the African continent within the energy cooperation frameworks of the EU Green Deal and the EU Hydrogen Strategy. Hence, the green hydrogen rollout will bridge the energy transition between Europe and Africa on the one hand, and climate and development targets on the other.
Abstract Trial results for two COVID-19 vaccines suggest at least 90% efficacy against symptomatic disease (VE DIS ). It remains unknown whether this efficacy is mediated by lowering SARS-CoV-2 infection susceptibility ( VE SUSC ) or development of symptoms after infection (VE SYMP ). We aim to assess and compare the population impact of vaccines with different efficacy profiles (VE SYMP and VE SUSC ) satisfying licensure criteria. We developed a mathematical model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, calibrated to data from King County, Washington. Rollout scenarios starting December 2020 were simulated with combinations of VE SUSC and VE SYMP resulting in up to 100% VE DIS . We assumed no reduction of infectivity upon infection conditional on presence of symptoms. Proportions of cumulative infections, hospitalizations and deaths prevented over 1 year from vaccination start are reported. Rollouts of 1 M vaccinations (5000 daily) using vaccines with 50% VE DIS are projected to prevent 23–46% of infections and 31–46% of deaths over 1 year. In comparison, vaccines with 90% VE DIS are projected to prevent 37–64% of infections and 46–64% of deaths over 1 year. In both cases, there is a greater reduction if VE DIS is mediated mostly by VE SUSC . The use of a “symptom reducing” vaccine will require twice as many people vaccinated than a “susceptibility reducing” vaccine with the same 90% VE DIS to prevent 50% of the infections and death over 1 year. Delaying the start of the vaccination by 3 months decreases the expected population impact by more than 50%. Vaccines which prevent COVID-19 disease but not SARS-CoV-2 infection, and thereby shift symptomatic infections to asymptomatic infections, will prevent fewer infections and require larger and faster vaccination rollouts to have population impact, compared to vaccines that reduce susceptibility to infection. If uncontrolled transmission across the U.S. continues, then expected vaccination in Spring 2021 will provide only limited benefit.
Large-scale disasters and catastrophic events typically result in a significant shortage of critical resources, posing a great challenge to allocating limited resources among different affected areas to improve the quality of emergency logistics operations. This article pays attention to the performance of resource allocation, which includes three metrics: efficiency, effectiveness, and equity, respectively corresponding to economic cost, service quality, and fairness. In particular, the effectiveness metric considers human suffering by depicting it as deprivation cost, an economic valuation measurement that has been recently proposed and the equity metric concerns about the service equality at the end of planning horizon. A nonlinear integer model is first proposed and then an equivalent dynamic programming model is developed to avoid the nonlinear terms created by the introduction of the deprivation cost. The dynamic programming method can solve small-scale problems to optimality but meets difficulty when solving medium- and large-scale problems, due to the curse of dimensionality. Therefore, an approximate dynamic programming algorithm, called the rollout algorithm, is proposed to overcome this computational difficulty. The computational complexity of the proposed algorithm is theoretically analyzed. Furthermore, a modified version of the rollout algorithm is presented, with its computational complexity analyzed. Extensive numerical experiments are conducted to test the performance of the proposed algorithms, and the experimental results demonstrate that the initially proposed rollout algorithm yields optimal or near-optimal solutions within a reasonable amount of time. In addition, the impacts of some important parameters are investigated and managerial insights are drawn.
BACKGROUND: A novel meningococcal serogroup A conjugate vaccine (MACV [MenAfriVac]) was developed as part of efforts to prevent frequent meningitis outbreaks in the African meningitis belt. The MACV was first used widely and with great success, beginning in December 2010, during initial deployment in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Since then, MACV rollout has continued in other countries in the meningitis belt through mass preventive campaigns and, more recently, introduction into routine childhood immunization programs associated with extended catch-up vaccinations. METHODS: We reviewed country reports on MACV campaigns and routine immunization data reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa from 2010 to 2018, as well as country plans for MACV introduction into routine immunization programs. RESULTS: By the end of 2018, 304 894 726 persons in 22 of 26 meningitis belt countries had received MACV through mass preventive campaigns targeting individuals aged 1-29 years. Eight of these countries have introduced MACV into their national routine immunization programs, including 7 with catch-up vaccinations for birth cohorts born after the initial rollout. The Central African Republic introduced MACV into its routine immunization program immediately after the mass 1- to 29-year-old vaccinations in 2017 so no catch-up was needed. CONCLUSIONS: From 2010 to 2018, successful rollout of MACV has been recorded in 22 countries through mass preventive campaigns followed by introduction into routine immunization programs in 8 of these countries. Efforts continue to complete MACV introduction in the remaining meningitis belt countries to ensure long-term herd protection.
The U.S. Government has pledged to spend $15 billion in Africa and the Caribbean on AIDS. A central focus of this plan is to provide antiretroviral treatment (ART) to millions. Here, we evaluate whether the plan to rollout ART in Africa is likely to generate an epidemic of drug-resistant strains of HIV. We review what has occurred as a result of high usage of ART in developed countries in terms of changes in risky behavior, and the emergence and transmission of drug-resistant HIV. We also review how mathematical models have been used to predict the evolution of drug-resistant HIV epidemics. We then show how models can be used to predict the likely impact of the ART rollout on the evolution of drug-resistant HIV in Africa. At currently planned levels of treatment coverage, we predict that (over the next decade) in Africa: (i) the impact of ART on reducing HIV transmission (and prevalence) is likely to be undetectable (unless accompanied by substantial changes in behavior), (ii) the transmission rate of drug-resistant HIV will be below the WHO surveillance threshold of 5%, and (ii) the majority of cases of drug-resistant HIV that will occur will be due to acquired (and not transmitted) resistance. For the next decade, large-scale surveillance for detecting transmitted resistance in Africa is unnecessary. Instead, we recommend that patients should be closely monitored for acquired resistance, and sentinel surveillance (in a few urban centers) should be used to monitor transmitted resistance.
BACKGROUND: More contagious variants of SARS-CoV-2 have emerged around the world, sparking concerns about impending surge in cases and severe outcomes. Despite the development of effective vaccines, rollout has been slow. We evaluated the impact of accelerated vaccine distribution on curbing the disease burden of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants. METHODS: We used an agent-based model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and vaccination to simulate the spread of novel variants with S-Gene Target Failure (SGTF) in addition to the original strain. We incorporated age-specific risk and contact patterns and implemented a two-dose vaccination campaign in accord with CDC-recommended prioritization. As a base case, we projected hospitalizations and deaths at a daily vaccination rate of 1 million doses in the United States (US) and compared with accelerated campaigns in which daily doses were expanded to 1.5, 2, 2.5, or 3 million. FINDINGS: We found that at a vaccination rate of 1 million doses per day, an emergent SGTF variant that is 20-70% more transmissible than the original variant would become dominant within 2 to 9 weeks, accounting for as much as 99% of cases at the outbreak peak. Our results show that accelerating vaccine delivery would substantially reduce severe health outcomes. For a SGTF with 30% higher transmissibility, increasing vaccine doses from 1 to 3 million per day would avert 152,048 (95% CrI: 134,772-168,696) hospitalizations and 48,448 (95% CrI: 42,042-54,285) deaths over 300 days. Accelerated vaccination would also prevent additional COVID-19 waves that would otherwise be fuelled by waning adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). INTERPRETATION: We found that the current pace of vaccine rollout is insufficient to prevent the exacerbation of the pandemic that will be attributable to the novel, more contagious SARS-CoV-2 variants. Accelerating the vaccination rate should be a public health priority for averting the expected surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths that would be associated with widespread dissemination of the SGTF variants. Our results underscore the need to bolster the production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, to rapidly expand vaccination priority groups and distribution sites.
This work presents a novel optimization framework for the optimal design of carbon capture, transport, and storage supply chains in terms of installation, sizing and operation of carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and transport technologies. The optimal design problem is formulated as a mixed-integer linear program that minimizes the total costs of the supply chains while complying with different emissions reduction pathways over a deployment time horizon of 25 years. All design decisions are time-dependent and are taken with a yearly resolution. Whereas the model is general, here its features are illustrated by designing optimal supply chains to decarbonize the Swiss waste-to-energy sector, for various emission reduction pathways, when up to two storage sites are considered, namely one in the North Sea assumed to be already available and a hypothetical one in Switzerland assumed to be possibly available in the future. Findings show that, unless a domestic storage site becomes available soon, the transport cost is the greatest contribution to the overall costs, followed by the capture cost, while the storage cost plays only a minor role. Pipelines are the most cost-effective mode of transport for large volumes of transported CO2, especially when considering multi-year time horizons for the planning of the supply chains. Ship and barge connections are competitive with pipeline connections, whereas rail and truck connections are cost-optimal only when considering shortsighted time horizons or small volumes of CO2 transported.