Optimization Model for the Location of Prehospital Care Ambulances in the city of Cali Colombia

Abstract

In 2015, authorities in Cali, Colombia, reported more than 309 deaths in traffic accidents, where 70% of the cases involved motorcycles. These figures generate concern in the city authorities, which leads to the study of alternatives for improving prehospital emergency care. The localization of ambulances is
currently based on the experience of staff in Medical Emergencies. Thus, the distance between the location of the ambulances and the point of care is considered minimal. This paper presents a localization model to
determine the number of ambulances needed to deal with emergencies reported by the city traffic bureau and its geographical location; different alternatives for improvement are evaluated. The proposed model is based on the expected maximum coverage location problem (MEXCLP), whose objective is to maximize the satisfied demand weighted by the availability of the service, which is calculated through the global estimate of the average occupancy level for each ambulance, based on the geographical and temporal distribution of historical demand. This means that research contributes to maximize coverage of reported emergencies by determining the number of ambulances needed for such care in the City under study. Finally, for its solution, a mathematical programming language and the platform NEOS Server for Optimization (https://neos-server.org/) are used.