Selective vehicle routing for a mobile blood donation system

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Sahinyazan F. G., Kara B. Y., Taner M. R.

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF OPERATIONAL RESEARCH, vol.245, no.1, pp.22-34, 2015 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 245 Issue: 1
  • Publication Date: 2015
  • Doi Number: 10.1016/j.ejor.2015.03.007
  • Journal Name: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF OPERATIONAL RESEARCH
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
  • Page Numbers: pp.22-34
  • Keywords: Routing, Selective Vehicle Routing Problem, Mobile blood collection, Healthcare logistics, TRAVELING SALESMAN PROBLEMS, HEALTH-CARE FACILITIES, ORIENTEERING PROBLEM, COLLECTION, SIMULATION
  • TED University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

In this study, a mobile blood collection system is designed with the primary objective of increasing blood collection levels. This design also takes into account operational costs to aim for collection of large amounts of blood at reasonable cost. Bloodmobiles perform direct tours to certain activities to collect blood, but at the end of each day, they bring the collected blood to a designated depot to prevent its spoilage. The proposed system consists of the bloodmobiles and a new vehicle called the shuttle that visits the bloodmobiles in the field on each day and transfers the collected blood to the depot. Consequently, bloodmobiles can continue their tours without having to make daily returns to the depot.