A Web-Interface Based Decision Support System for Optimizing Home Healthcare Waste Collection Vehicle Routing

Kubra Sar () and Pezhman Ghadimi
Additional contact information
Kubra Sar: Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University College Dublin, D04 C1P1 Dublin, Ireland
Pezhman Ghadimi: Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University College Dublin, D04 C1P1 Dublin, Ireland

Logistics, 2024, vol. 8, issue 4, 1-21

Abstract: Background: The significant increase in home healthcare (HHC) driven by technological advancements, an ageing population, and heightened disease outbreaks—especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic—has created an urgent need for improved medical waste management. Methods : This paper presents the development of a decision support system with a web-based interface designed for efficient medical waste collection in the HHC sector. Results: The system utilises Flask for backend operations, with HTML and CSS for the user interface, and manages data using JSON files. Its flexible design supports real-time adjustments for various vehicle types and changing waste production locations. It incorporates dynamic routing by employing two sophisticated metaheuristic algorithms: the Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm (SPEA-2) and the Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II). This setup supports different dataset sizes and vehicle fleets, including Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles and Electric Vehicles (EVs). Conclusions: The automation reduces uncertainties in waste collection by minimising human intervention. The system is built to be easily adaptable for other sectors with minor modifications and can be expanded to test various scenarios with new selectable parameters.

Keywords: decision support system; web interface application; medical waste collection; vehicle routing problem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L8 L80 L81 L86 L87 L9 L90 L91 L92 L93 L98 L99 M1 M10 M11 M16 M19 R4 R40 R41 R49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6290/8/4/119/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6290/8/4/119/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlogis:v:8:y:2024:i:4:p:119-:d:1523066

Access Statistics for this article

Logistics is currently edited by Ms. Mavis Li

More articles in Logistics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().