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Safe distancing in the time of COVID-19

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  • Fischetti, Martina
  • Fischetti, Matteo
  • Stoustrup, Jakob

Abstract

The spread of viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 brought new challenges to our society, including a stronger focus on safety across all businesses. Many countries have imposed a minimum social distance among people in order to ensure their safety. This brings new challenges to many customer-related businesses, such as restaurants, offices, theaters, etc., on how to locate their facilities (tables, seats etc.) under distancing constraints. We propose a parallel between this problem and that of locating wind turbines in an offshore area. The discovery of this parallel allows us to apply Mathematical Optimization algorithms originally designed for wind farms, to produce optimized facility layouts that minimize the overall risk of infection among customers. In this way we can investigate the structure of the safest layouts, with some surprising outcomes. A lesson learned is that, in the safest layouts, the facilities are not equally distanced (as it is typically believed) but tend to concentrate on the border of the available area—a policy that significantly reduces the overall risk of contagion.

Suggested Citation

  • Fischetti, Martina & Fischetti, Matteo & Stoustrup, Jakob, 2023. "Safe distancing in the time of COVID-19," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 304(1), pages 139-149.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:304:y:2023:i:1:p:139-149
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2021.07.010
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Martina Fischetti & Jesper Runge Kristoffersen & Thomas Hjort & Michele Monaci & David Pisinger, 2020. "Vattenfall Optimizes Offshore Wind Farm Design," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 50(1), pages 80-94, January.
    2. Martina Fischetti & Michele Monaci, 2016. "Proximity search heuristics for wind farm optimal layout," Journal of Heuristics, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 459-474, August.
    3. Salari, Mostafa & Milne, R. John & Delcea, Camelia & Kattan, Lina & Cotfas, Liviu-Adrian, 2020. "Social distancing in airplane seat assignments," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. I. Douglas Moon & Sohail S. Chaudhry, 1984. "An Analysis of Network Location Problems with Distance Constraints," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(3), pages 290-307, March.
    5. Martina Fischetti & David Pisinger, 2019. "Mathematical Optimization and Algorithms for Offshore Wind Farm Design: An Overview," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 61(4), pages 469-485, August.
    6. Fischetti, Martina, 2021. "On the optimized design of next-generation wind farms," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 291(3), pages 862-870.
    7. Sayah, David & Irnich, Stefan, 2017. "A new compact formulation for the discrete p-dispersion problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(1), pages 62-67.
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    Cited by:

    1. Alan T. Murray & Susan Burtner, 2023. "Physical distancing as an integral component of pandemic response," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 1-17, December.

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