Solve the medical specimen collection problem by Ant Colony Optimization

Abstract

This research presents a multi-depot vehicle routing problem in which some freight is time-sensitive. It is inspired by the medical sample collection problem in which some specific medical samples (such as blood and urine) must be returned to the hospital or laboratory within a specific time in order to preserve the specimen’s efficacy. The medical specimen collection problem is emerging for a society with a rapidly aging population, which implies an increase in people requiring long-term care. This problem aims to determine the number of trucks needed and their associated routes in which the total cost is optimised. A solving process based on Ant Colony Optimization is proposed and used to solve two sets of benchmarks to verify its performance. Other scenarios, including non-urgent, all-urgent, and mixed-specimens cases, are also resolved. The study demonstrates a problem-solving process. The outcomes show that the proposed solving method can produce competitive solutions.

KEYWORDS:

• Vehicle routing problem
• multi-depot
• medical sample collection
• urgent demand
• Ant Colony Optimization

Acknowledges

The authors would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.