Ambulance routing for disaster response with patient groups

Abstract

We consider a routing problem for ambulances in a disaster response scenario, in which a large number of injured people require medical aid at the same time. The ambulances are used to carry medical personnel and patients. We distinguish two groups of patients: slightly injured people who can be assisted directly in the field, and seriously injured people who have to be brought to hospitals. Since ambulances represent a scarce resource in disaster situations, their efficient usage is of the utmost importance. Two mathematical formulations are proposed to obtain route plans that minimize the latest service completion time among the people waiting for help. Since disaster response calls for high-quality solutions within seconds, we also propose a Large Neighborhood Search metaheuristic. This solution approach can be applied at high frequency to cope with the dynamics and uncertainties in a disaster situation. Our experiments show that the metaheuristic produces near optimal solutions for a large number of test instances within very short response time. Hence, it fulfills the criteria for applicability in a disaster situation. Within the experiments, we also analysed the effect of various structural parameters of a problem, like the number of ambulances, hospitals, and the type of patients, on both running time of the heuristic and quality of the solutions.

A cluster-based emergency vehicle routing problem in disaster with reliability

“…In a signi cant study by Talarico et al [30], an emergency ambulance routing problem was modeled in such a way that patients were grouped and prioritized before evacuation.…”

Multi-objective open location-routing model for relief distribution networks with split delivery and multi-mode transportation under uncertainty

“…In the intended model, only the disaster areas that are accessible via ground transportation have been considered and those which need helicopter or other vehicles are not considered at all. In another study Talarico et al [19] formulated an routing problem for ambulance at the time of natural catastrophes. In their study, ambulances were used not only to carry health care personnel but also patients.…”

Dynamic Routing for Emergency Vehicle by Collecting Real-Time Road Conditions

“…Otherwise, update the weight of q when the sum of the weight of the edge and the weight of p is smaller than the existing weight of q. Set p to the newly updated point, and repeat from step (2). If there is no point where the weight is newly updated, this algorithm terminates.…”

“…Under such circumstances, emergency vehicles such as ambulances and missed cars must arrive at their destinations as soon as possible in order to rescue the injured or sick and to extinguish the building. In many existing studies, delivery plan for the emergency vehicles in the shortest time is proposed in [2] [3] [4] [5]. However, the congestion of the road immediately after the occurrence of the disaster and the existence of the road which became impossible to pass cannot be grasped or predicted before the occurrence of the disaster.…”