HiMCM 2019 · Problem set
The 2019 contest paired a long-horizon infrastructure-planning question (how many EV chargers should a country build, and where?) with a behaviour-and-policy question (should a campus ban single-use plastic bottles?). Both reward forecasting and good scenario design.
| Contest dates | November 6 – November 19, 2019 (14-day window) |
| Participation | ~780 teams worldwide [illustrative] |
| Problem A | Charge! — siting and sizing the US EV-charging network |
| Problem B | Bottle Battles — modeling a single-use bottle policy |
| Official results | 2019 HiMCM results & commentary |
Why this pair is interesting now. Problem A is the direct conceptual ancestor
of 2023-B (e-buses) — same "plan an infrastructure transition" template. Problem B is the
ancestor of 2022-A (compartmental dynamics) — same flow-stock-flow structure. Reading 2019
before those years makes the patterns obvious.
The two problems
Problem A
Charge!
Forecast US EV adoption to 2030. Decide how many DC fast-charge and Level-2 stations the country needs, and how they should be distributed geographically.
Open outline →
Problem B
Bottle Battles
A university is considering banning the sale of single-use plastic bottles. Model the flows of bottle waste, recycling, and student behaviour to evaluate the policy.
Open outline →
Why this year is good practice
- Problem A is a forecasting + facility-location problem. You'll touch logistic adoption, regression, and a simple set-cover or p-median formulation.
- Problem B is a behaviour-modeling problem. It rewards a small compartmental model and a clear policy lever.
- Excellent dataset availability. AFDC alternative-fueling-station data, IEA Global EV Outlook, and campus sustainability reports are all free and clean.