A BB-BC based Approach for Ambulance Deployment

Background/objectives: Punjab State's Department of Family Welfare and Health has extended Emergency Response Service (ERS) to all the citizens of the state free of cost at all times since March 2011. Under the service 240 ambulances were positioned across the state. The author intends to cover maximum area with given ambulances. Methods/Statistical Analysis: the aim of the paper is to improve the coverage of ERS. To do so, the author surveys the deployment methods found in the literature and proposes a new approach of ambulance deployment based upon Big Bang Big Crunch optimization algorithm. The applied approach was implemented and validated on MATLAB. Findings: This technique allows us to cover the entire state of Punjab which is divided into 8 sectors with the fleet of 236 ambulances providing a coverage radius of 8.5 kilometers by an individual ambulance. Improvements/Applications: The applied soft- computing technique surpasses the existing techniques