Social Care logistics: routing and scheduling for home care services

M. I. Gomes

Social Care logistics concerns the planning and management of logistics activities that support the daily living of people in socially vulnerable conditions. From an Operations Research perspective, these problems require models that account not only for efficiency, but also for the specific needs of care provision. In this talk, we discuss the Home Social Care problem through a case study from a non-profit organization providing services to patients with different levels of autonomy: some must be visited by two synchronized caregivers, while others require only one caregiver. To address this problem, we consider a multiperiod vehicle routing and scheduling model with time windows, synchronization constraints, and continuity-of-care requirements. Different planning scenarios are analyzed to assess the impact of synchronization and continuity of care on routing plans. The results show that integrated planning with synchronization can free caregivers’ time to support new patients.

Keywords: Routing and Scheduling, Synchronization, Mixed-integer linear programming, Social care logistics

SI APDIO
September 3, 2026  11:10 AM
Aula 28

F. Alvelos, I. Martins

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