Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Help us to Help: Improving Non-urgent Transport on a Portuguese Fire Station

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

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1981))

  • 175 Accesses

Abstract

In Portugal, the transport of non-urgent patients is mostly performed by fire stations. These non-profit organizations have tight budgets and cannot afford to buy expensive software to improve their services. Furthermore, it is not always easy to find open-source tools. In this research, an open-source solver, developed in Visual Basic for Applications, was used and adapted as a case study to analyze the case of a fire station in the North of Portugal. The modifications to the solver are presented and real instances are tested. An analysis of the environmental impacts that originated during transportation is presented, summarizing the main implications caused by this activity. The results show better use of the ambulances’ capacity and significant reductions in the traveled distances and in the fire station’s ecological footprint.

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

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
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

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1.

    But they also have to do volunteer hours.

  2. 2.

    Note that, the appointment times are defined priory by the physical therapists.

  3. 3.

    E.g., for a patient with an appointment at 11:00 a.m. the time window 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. is considered.

  4. 4.

    https://neos-server.org/neos/.

  5. 5.

    Available online at: https://people.bath.ac.uk/ge277/vrp-spreadsheet-solver/.

References

  1. Alves, F., Alvelos, F., Rocha, A.M., Pereira, A.I., Leitão, P.: Periodic vehicle routing problem in a health unit. In: ICORES 2019 - Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems, pp. 384–389 (2019). https://doi.org/10.5220/0007392803840389

  2. Campbell, A.M., Wilson, J.H.: Forty years of periodic vehicle routing. Networks 63(1), 2–15 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1002/net.21527

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  3. Cao, P., Liu, Z.: The impact of population characteristics on transportation co2 emissions-does population aging important? Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 1–20 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26465-9

  4. Cardoso, R.: O modelo de transporte de doentes não urgentes: estudo do caso hospital geral de santo antónio. Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública, Trabalho final de especialização em administração hospitalar (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Cordeau, J., Laporte, G., Mercier, A.: A unified tabu search algorithm for vehicle routing problems with soft time windows. J. Oper. Res. Soc. 59(5), 663–673 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601163

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Dantzig, G.B., Ramser, J.H.: The truck dispatching problem. Manag. Sci. 6(1), 80–91 (1959). https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.6.1.80

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  7. Delicado, A.: Caracterização do voluntariado social em portugal. Intervenção Social 25, 127–140 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  8. DRE: Portaria n.\(^{\underline{\rm o}}\) 142-a/2012, diário da república, 1.\(^{\underline{\rm a}}\) série - n.\(^{\underline{\rm o}}\) 94–15 de maio de 2012, 2532-(2)–2532-(3) (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  9. ECOtransit: Emission calculator for greenhouse gases and exhaust emissions (2022)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Erdoğan, G.: An open source spreadsheet solver for vehicle routing problems. Comput. Oper. Res. 84, 62–72 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2017.02.022

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  11. Ferreira, D.: Qualidade e Satisfação no transporte programado de doentes: o caso dos Bombeiros Voluntários da Póvoa do Varzim. Master’s thesis, Escola de Economia e Gestão (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Hains, I.M., Marks, A., Georgiou, A., Westbrook, J.I.: Non-emergency patient transport: what are the quality and safety issues? a systematic review. Int. J. Qual. Health Care J. Int. Soc. Qual. Health Care/ISQua 23(1), 68–75 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzq076

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Hanne, T., Melo, T., Nickel, S.: Bringing robustness to patient flow management through optimized patient transports in hospitals. Interfaces 39(3), 241–255 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1287/inte.1080.0379

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Koç, C., Laporte, G., Tükenmez, I.: A review of vehicle routing with simultaneous pickup and delivery. Comput. Oper. Res. 122, 104987 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2020.104987

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  15. lo Storto, C., Evangelista, P.: Infrastructure efficiency, logistics quality and environmental impact of land logistics systems in the EU: a dea-based dynamic mapping. Res. Transport. Bus. Manag. 46, 100814 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rtbm.2022.100814

  16. Lopes, E., Costa e Silva, E.: Evaluation of an open source solver to assist on the non-urgent patients transport problem. In: Abraham, A., Hanne, T., Castillo, O., Gandhi, N., Nogueira Rios, T., Hong, T.-P. (eds.) HIS 2020. AISC, vol. 1375, pp. 375–384. Springer, Cham (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73050-5_38

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  17. Loureiro, M.: Optimização de Rotas de Transporte de Doentes Programados : O Caso da Cruz Vermelha Portuguesa Amadora - Sintra. Master’s thesis, Instituto Superior Técnico (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Melachrinoudis, E., Ilhan, A.B., Min, H.: A dial-a-ride problem for client transportation in a health-care organization. Comput. Oper. Res. 34(3), 742–759 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2005.03.024

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Mourgaya, M., Vanderbeck, F.: The periodic vehicle routing problem: classification and heuristic. RAIRO-Oper. Res. 40(2), 169–194 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1051/ro:2006015

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Oberscheider, M., Hirsch, P.: Analysis of the impact of different service levels on the workload of an ambulance service provider. BMC Health Serv. Res. 16(1), 1–13 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-016-1727-5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Oliveira, J., Ferreira, J., Dias, L., Figueiredo, M., Pereira, G.: Non emergency patients transport - a mixed integer linear programming. In: International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems - ICORES, vol. 2, pp. 262–269. INSTICC, SciTePress (2015). https://doi.org/10.5220/0005214902620269

  22. Pisinger, D., Ropke, S.: A general heuristic for vehicle routing problems. Comput. Oper. Res. 34(8), 2403–2435 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2005.09.012

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  23. Shaw, P.: Using constraint programming and local search methods to solve vehicle routing problems. In: Maher, M., Puget, J.-F. (eds.) CP 1998. LNCS, vol. 1520, pp. 417–431. Springer, Heidelberg (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-49481-2_30

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  24. da Silva, M.: Transporte de Doentes Não Urgentes: Elementos de Modelação Estatística e Melhorias Potenciais de Eficiência Via Otimização de Roteamento. Master’s thesis (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Silva, O., Cordera, R., González-González, E., Nogués, S.: Environmental impacts of autonomous vehicles: a review of the scientific literature. Sci. Total Environ. 830, 154615 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154615

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Smith, S., Fortnum, D., Ludlow, M., Mathew, T., Toy, L.: Challenges in methods and availability of transport for dialysis patients. Renal Soc. Aust. J. 11(3), 118–125 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Solomon, M.M.: Algorithms for the vehicle routing and scheduling problems with time window constraints. Oper. Res. 35(2), 254–265 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.35.2.254

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  28. Tian, G., et al.: A survey of multi-criteria decision-making techniques for green logistics and low-carbon transportation systems. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 30(20), 57279–57301 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26577-2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Van Den Berg, P.L., Van Essen, J.T.: Scheduling non-urgent patient transportation while maximizing emergency coverage. Transp. Sci. 53(2), 492–509 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1287/trsc.2018.0823

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work has been supported by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia through project UIDB/04728/2020.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CIICESI, ESTG, Politécnico do Porto, Felgueiras, Portugal

    Emanuel Lopes, Eliana Costa e Silva, Óscar Oliveira & Wellington Alves

Authors
  1. Emanuel Lopes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Eliana Costa e Silva
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Óscar Oliveira
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Wellington Alves
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eliana Costa e Silva .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal

    Ana I. Pereira

  2. University of Azores, Ponta Delgada, Portugal

    Armando Mendes

  3. Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal

    Florbela P. Fernandes

  4. Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal

    Maria F. Pacheco

  5. Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal

    João P. Coelho

  6. Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal

    José Lima

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

Lopes, E., Costa e Silva, E., Oliveira, Ó., Alves, W. (2024). Help us to Help: Improving Non-urgent Transport on a Portuguese Fire Station. 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_33

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53025-8_33

  • 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

Search

Navigation