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Solving a home-care districting problem in an urban setting

  • Case-oriented Paper
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Journal of the Operational Research Society

Abstract

This article describes a districting study undertaken for the Côte-des-Neiges local community health clinic in Montreal. A territory must be partitioned into six districts by suitably grouping territorial basic units. Five districting criteria must be respected: indivisibility of basic units, respect for borough boundaries, connectivity, visiting personnel mobility, and workload equilibrium. The last two criteria are combined into a single objective function and the problem is solved by means of a tabu search technique that iteratively moves a basic unit to an adjacent district or swaps two basic units between adjacent districts. The problem was solved and the clinic management confirmed its satisfaction after a 2 year implementation period.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partly supported by the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council under Grants OGP0184219 and OGP0039682, by the Quebec FCAR program and by the Côte-des-Neiges CLSC. This support is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks are also due to the staff of the Côte-des-Neiges CLSC for their support and to ESRI Canada for their complimentary provision of ArcView. Finally, we thank the referees for their valuable comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Urgences-Santé, 3232, rue Bélanger, Montreal, H1Y 3H5, Canada

    M Blais

  2. École Polytechnique, C.P. 6079, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montreal, H3C 3A7, Canada

    S D Lapierre

  3. Centre de recherche sur les transports, (CRT) Universite de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montreal, H3C 3J7, Canada

    S D Lapierre & G Laporte

  4. Canada Research Chair in Distribution Management, HEC Montréal, 3000 chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montreal, H3T 2A7, Canada

    G Laporte

Authors
  1. M Blais
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  2. S D Lapierre
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  3. G Laporte
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Correspondence to G Laporte.

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Blais, M., Lapierre, S. & Laporte, G. Solving a home-care districting problem in an urban setting. J Oper Res Soc 54, 1141–1147 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601625

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601625

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