A hybrid symbiotic organisms and variable neighborhood searches to minimize response time

Abstract

Medical Emergency Services (MES) are an important element in the modern healthcare system. MES become an important issue because it plays an essential role in saving lives and reducing mortality and disability. The ability of MES is to save lives depending on the time it takes for an ambulance to arrive on the scene after an emergency call received. The purpose of this study is to overcome the problems in the limitation of the number of ambulances required and the minimization of response time. This paper develops the hybrid of Symbiotic Organisms Search and Variable Neighbourhood Search to determine the location and amount of ambulance to be allocated. Our findings showed that for the current system, the ideal limit time is 15 minutes, considering the amount of demand that can be covered. This scenario is able to produce a response time of around 13 minutes and is able to meet the entire demand. To minimize response time, we can use the 8, 8 minutes maximum covering time scenario, so the response time becomes 6 - 8 minutes. The consequence is the existing system need 11-12 stations and 15 unit ambulances to allocate to cover max 15 demands.