Optimising the travel of home health carers using a hybrid ant colony algorithm Available to Purchase

Home health care can reduce costs in the health sector while preserving a reasonable quality of service. Research was undertaken into the problem of scheduling home health carers and routing their vehicles so as to give the best quality of service to patients, at the same time as minimising total travel time and costs. To solve the problem, a new hybrid algorithm based on ant colony systems with a genetic algorithm was proposed. Experimental results highlighted the effectiveness of the proposed approach, with about 77% of new solutions found compared to a previously published method. The proposed solution was found to provide an excellent balance between efficiency and reliability.