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Dynamic transportation of patients in hospitals

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Abstract

This study analyzes and solves a patient transportation problem arising in large hospitals. The aim is to provide an efficient and timely transport service to patients between several locations in a hospital campus. Transportation requests arrive in a dynamic fashion and the solution methodology must therefore be capable of quickly inserting new requests in the current vehicle routes. Contrary to standard dial-a-ride problems, the problem under study includes several complicating constraints which are specific to a hospital context. The study provides a detailed description of the problem and proposes a two-phase heuristic procedure capable of handling its many features. In the first phase a simple insertion scheme is used to generate a feasible solution, which is improved in the second phase with a tabu search algorithm. The heuristic procedure was extensively tested on real data provided by a German hospital. Results show that the algorithm is capable of handling the dynamic aspect of the problem and of providing high-quality solutions. In particular, it succeeded in reducing waiting times for patients while using fewer vehicles.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jeppesen (Canada) Ltd., Montreal, QC, H3A 3J6, Canada

    Alexandre Beaudry

  2. Canada Research Chair in Distribution Management, HEC Montréal, Montreal, QC, H3T 2A7, Canada

    Gilbert Laporte

  3. Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics and Department of Business Administration, University of Applied Sciences, 66123, Saarbrücken, Germany

    Teresa Melo

  4. Chair of Operations Research and Logistics and Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics, Saarland University, 66041, Saarbrücken, Germany

    Stefan Nickel

Authors
  1. Alexandre Beaudry
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  2. Gilbert Laporte
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  3. Teresa Melo
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  4. Stefan Nickel
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Correspondence to Stefan Nickel.

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Beaudry, A., Laporte, G., Melo, T. et al. Dynamic transportation of patients in hospitals. OR Spectrum 32, 77–107 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00291-008-0135-6

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