A compact model for the home healthcare routing and scheduling problem

IF 2.6 Q2 OPERATIONS RESEARCH & MANAGEMENT SCIENCE

EURO Journal on Computational Optimization Pub Date : 2025-01-01 DOI:10.1016/j.ejco.2024.100101

Roberto Montemanni , Sara Ceschia , Andrea Schaerf

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Home healthcare has become more and more central in the last decades, due to the advantages it can bring to both healthcare institutions and patients. Planning activities in this context, however, presents significant challenges related to route planning and mutual synchronization of caregivers.

In this paper we propose a new compact model for the combined optimization of scheduling (of the activities) and routing (of the caregivers) characterized by fewer variables and constraints when compared with the models previously available in the literature. The new model is solved by a constraint programming solver and compared experimentally with the exact and metaheuristic approaches available in the literature on the common datasets adopted by the community. The results show that the new model provides improved lower bounds for the vast majority of the instances, while producing at the same time high quality heuristic solutions, comparable to those of tailored metaheuristics, for small/medium size instances.

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来源期刊

EURO Journal on Computational Optimization OPERATIONS RESEARCH & MANAGEMENT SCIENCE-

CiteScore

3.50

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

60 days

期刊介绍： The aim of this journal is to contribute to the many areas in which Operations Research and Computer Science are tightly connected with each other. More precisely, the common element in all contributions to this journal is the use of computers for the solution of optimization problems. Both methodological contributions and innovative applications are considered, but validation through convincing computational experiments is desirable. The journal publishes three types of articles (i) research articles, (ii) tutorials, and (iii) surveys. A research article presents original methodological contributions. A tutorial provides an introduction to an advanced topic designed to ease the use of the relevant methodology. A survey provides a wide overview of a given subject by summarizing and organizing research results.