A location problem for emergency healthcare facilites

In this study, we consider the problem of locating emergency healthcare facilities in urban areas. Upon emergency occurrence, patients are directed to any one of the emergency centers with a likelihood that depends on the travel time. Moreover, the survival, that represents the severity of the consequences of the emergency situation, is also probabilistic and is a function of the travel time. A mathematical model is constructed under the objective of maximizing expected number of survivors while determining the location of predetermined number of facilities. Characteristics of this model under certain situations, such as when a concave or convex survival function is used, or when the facility is located on a line or a network, are investigated. After presenting the analytical findings, we propose a Genetic Algorithm based solution approach to solve the model for locating healthcare facilities on a network. Lastly, we present its performance and findings through an extensive numerical stud