A comparison between convex optimization and systemdynamics methods in Ambulance allocation and redeploymentproblems

The problem of ambulance allocation in medical services is one of the challenging issues in emergency situations. On the other hand, redeployment of the ambulances has a critical role in decreasing the waiting time for the patients. The objective of these problems is to reduce the response time of an emergency service which results in the increment of the survival rate of the patients. In this paper we introduce two methods to solve these problems and find the optimal policy for the allocation and redeployment of the ambulances. The first method is convex optimization approach which solves an optimization problem with a various number of constraints. The second method is system dynamics approach which models and analyzes the system using dynamic equation and relation between a vast numbers of system parameters. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the proposed methods and compare them in different scenarios and suggest solutions for the medical services to reduce their response times.

کلیدواژه ها:

Ambulance allocation ، Ambulance redeployment ، System dynamics ، Convex optimization ، Response time of EMS units ، Convergence time