Sectors and routes in transportation of non-urgent patients

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2018

Authors

José Soeiro Ferreira (Author) FEUP; Luís Miguel Bandeira (Author) Other; Ana Maria Rodrigues Ferreira (Author) Other

Conference proceedings National

Title: V Workshop on Computational Data Analysis and Numerical Methods: Book of Abstracts

Pages: 58-60

V Workshop on Computational Data Analysis and Numerical Methods

Porto, Portugal, 11-12, May

Other information

Abstract (EN): Sectors appear in a large variety of contexts. Sectorization is often associated with geographic divisions such as political (re)districting, with the design of police areas, school districting, but also with home-care services, location problems and denition of sales territories. Several criteria are considered to design and assure the quality of the sectors. Criteria such as equilibrium, compactness or contiguity are frequently used. However, the opinion of decision makers and the type of applications may lead to other criteria, like the respect of natural boundaries, integrity or the representation of ethnic minorities (see [1]). Important surveys such as [2] and [3] can be useful for those not so familiar with the subject. Sectorization problems are usually dicult to solve, for several reasons. In this event, a real case involving sectorization and routing, applied to the daily transport of patients between their residences and a hospital centre, will be presented. The hospital centre, located in Porto, has trained sta to attend these patients and oers them daily support (Monday to Friday). Patients are from a vast area around the town and have dierent particularities. Not all patients require hospital visits every day. The hospital centre takes patients back to their homes, but not everyone does it at the same time. Part of the patients only returns home after dinner, while others do so early. The eet of vehicles that transport patients is homogeneous and each vehicle has a maximum capacity of seven patients. It is intended that the transport be made as quickly as possible, (the cost of each route is given by the time of the trip) and that the occupancy rate of the vehicles is high. In the case of transportation involving patients with mental disabilities, it is important that the knowledge of drivers and caregivers can emerge in the resolution process. The method used to deal with this case resorts to SectorEl, an electrostatic based approach to sectorization, which has already been developed by the authors, see [4], including, however, some relevant changes. The procedures are inspired on Coulomb's Law and allow to create sectors, in compliance with factors the patients have in common, and to enhance the solutions. Moreover, it is possible to take into consideration undesirable forms of a solution. By applying the method and attending specic criteria and the characteristics of each patient, it is possible to divide the entire group of patients into small groups. Within each group, the transport is done by a single vehicle. The results obtained will be shown and interpreted, especially in what concerns interesting aspects such as: the variability of patients during the week, the opportunity of rapid incorporation of new patients into the process and the likelihood that some may quit the centre, for several reasons.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 3