Skip to main content

Schedule Modeling in a Fire Station: A Linear Approach to Optimize Service and Human Resources

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Optimization, Learning Algorithms and Applications (OL2A 2023)

Abstract

Associations of Volunteer Firefighters form the basis of helping the Portuguese population. In these institutions, to guarantee the first line of assistance, there are volunteers and also a group of professional firefighters. However, there are not always enough funds to hire the human resources effectively needed, or even to guarantee the continuity of services provided 24 h a day. In this work, the linear programming method was used to study a schedule problem, and the simulations presented were carried out at Excel OpenSolver. The aim was to understand the minimum number of firefighters needed to meet the demands of the population and to guarantee a quick response to requests that may occur over the day. Even with some restrictions associated with the specific roles of each firefighter, it was possible to design several scenarios, involving different shifts, and left the decision of the best solution for the responsible of the fire station taking into account the trade-off between costs and provided service.

Supported by Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 89.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Costa, F. J.: A saúde no trabalho: a realidade de quem socorre. Masther Thesis. Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Moura, D., Oliveira, E.: Fighting fire with agents: an agent coordination model for simulated firefighting. In: Proceedings of the 2007 Spring Simulation Multiconference, vol. 2, pp. 71–78. Society for Computer Simulation International (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Amaro, A.D.: O socorro em Portugal : organização, formação e cultura de segurança nos corpos de bombeiros, no quadro da Protecção Civil. PhD Thesis, universidade do Porto (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  4. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  5. United Nations.: Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Devine, M., Bond, RR., Simms, V., Boyce, K. E., Kerr, DP.: Mapping the health, safety and wellbeing challenges of firefighting to wearable devices. In: Paper presented at British HCI Conference 2018, Belfast, Northern Ireland, pp. 1–5 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Raffer, C., Scheller, H., Peters, O.: The UN sustainable development goals as innovation drivers for local sustainability governance? examples from Germany. J. Public Sector Econ. 46(4), 459–487 (2022)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Thangavel, K., Spiller, D., Sabatini, R., Marzocca, P., Esposito, M.: Near real-time wildfire management using distributed satellite system. IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Lett. 20, 1–5 (2023)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Pordata. https://www.pordata.pt/portugal/numero+de+bombeiros-1188. Accessed 5 May 2023

  10. Costa, G.: Shift work and occupational medicine: an overview. Occup. Med. 53(2), 83–88 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Chiang, S.L., et al.: Impact of rotating shifts on lifestyle patterns and perceived stress among nurses: a cross-sectional study. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 19(9), 5235 (2022)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Zverev, Y.P., Misiri, H.E.: Perceived effects of rotating shift work on nurses’ sleep quality and duration. Malawi Med. J. 21(1), 19–21 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Moz, M., Pato, M.V.: An integer multicommodity flow model applied to the rerostering of nurse schedules. Ann. Oper. Res. 119, 285–301 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Costa, D.: Trabalho por turnos e descanso semanal - A atualidade de uma antiga controvérsia. Masther Thesis. Universidade Católica Portuguesa (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Domingos, C.S.: Impacto do trabalho por turnos na saúde dos trabalhadores Caso dos Polícias de Segurança Pública (PSP). Masther thesis. Universidade do Porto (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Francisco, A. S. (2017). O impacto do ambiente físico na eficácia do trabalho em equipa. Masther thesis. ISCTE (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Schmutz, J.B., Meier, L.L., Manser, T.: How effective is teamwork really? the relationship between teamwork and performance in healthcare teams: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open 9(9), e028280 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Bação, A.S.: Desenvolvimento do trabalho em equipa num contexto de cultura de safety: Estudo de caso numa empresa da indústria mineira. Masther thesis. Universidade de Évora (2023)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Scalabrin, I., Mores, C.J., Enderli Bodanese, R., Oliveira, J. A.: Programação linar: estudo de caso com utilização do solver da Microsoft Excel. Em Revista Universo Contábil (pp. 56–66). Blumenau, Brasil: Universidade Regional de Blumenau (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Teles, R.E.: Desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta de apoio à alocação de recursos humanos Aplicação ao centro de distribuição da FNAC Portugal. Masther Thesis. ISCTE (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Kowalik, P., Rzemieniak, M.: Binary linear programming as a tool of cost optimization for a water supply operator. Sustainability 13, 3470 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Mason, J.: OpenSolver – an open source add-in to solve linear and integer progammes in excel. In: Operations Research Proceedings, pp 401–406 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R &D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020. It is also supported by The Center for Research and Development in Mathematics and Applications (CIDMA) through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia), references UIDB/04106/2020 and UIDP/04106/2020. This research is part of Ana Rita Silva logistics master thesis.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Helena Sofia Rodrigues .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Silva, A.R., Rodrigues, H.S., Silva, Â. (2024). Schedule Modeling in a Fire Station: A Linear Approach to Optimize Service and Human Resources. In: Pereira, A.I., Mendes, A., Fernandes, F.P., Pacheco, M.F., Coelho, J.P., Lima, J. (eds) Optimization, Learning Algorithms and Applications. OL2A 2023. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1981. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53025-8_32

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53025-8_32

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-53024-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-53025-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics