A multi-period double coverage approach for locating the emergency medical service stations in Istanbul

Abstract

We consider the multi-period location planning problem of emergency medical service (EMS) stations. Our objective is to maximize the total population serviced by two distinct stations within two different response time limits over a multi-period planning horizon. Our aim is to provide a backup station in case no ambulance is available in the closer station and to develop a strategic plan that spans multiple periods. In order to solve this problem, we propose a Tabu Search approach. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach on randomly generated data. We also implement our approach to the case of Istanbul to determine the locations of EMS stations in the metropolitan area.

Keywords:

• maximal covering
• multi-period backup double covering
• Tabu Search

Acknowledgements

We thank the managers and personnel of the Directorate of Instant Relief and Rescue at the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality for their valuable collaboration in collecting the data and sharing their ideas. We are grateful to the Directorate of Strategic Planning at the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality for supporting this research. We also thank the two anonymous referees for their constructive comments.