Solving the ambulance location problem in Tijuana-Mexico using a continuous location model

Here we address the ambulance location problem for the ambulance fleet of the Red Cross Unit of Tijuana, Mexico, which is a crucial factor for the quality of their emergency medical services (EMS). For this purpose, we first propose an optimization problem which is an adaption of the Multi-source Weber Problem to the problem at hand and which is a continuous location model. Next, we solve this problem on five test instances adapted to the situation in Tijuana by a genetic algorithm and compare the results to the current situation. This comparison indicates that changing the location of the fleet, as suggested by the optimization process and working under the assumptions made in this work, would lead to significant improvements of the EMS provided in Tijuana.