Abstract

Location of emergency medical services such as an ambulance in urban locations has been under study for a long time. Several approaches have been employed in solving this very sensitive location problem. In this paper, a case study of the ambulance location problem in an urban setting as the Kumasi metropolis in Ghana is solved. The Non-Linear Maximum Expected Covering Location Problem (MEXCLP) implemented by Saydam and Aytug (2003) was used. To solve the problem, Genetic Algorithms (GA) that uses random key coding was implemented. A formula for renormalization has been introduced. Real route distances were used for computation and statistical deviation was introduced in the selection of our optimal route.

Key words: Location, maximum expected covering location problem, genetic algorithm.