IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/jorsoc/v63y2012i2p245-260.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Applying min–max k postmen problems to the routing of security guards

Author

Listed:
  • E J Willemse

    (Logistics and Quantitative Methods, CSIR: Built Environment, Pretoria, South Africa)

  • J W Joubert

    (Optimisation Group, Department of Industrial and System Engineering, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa)

Abstract

The most essential and alluring characteristic of a security estate is the estate's ability to provide 24-h security to its residents, of which the continual patrolling of roads and paths is vital. The objective of this paper is to address the lack of sufficient patrol route design procedures by presenting a tabu search algorithm capable of generating multiple patrol routes for an estate's security guards. The paper shows that the problem of designing these routes can be modelled as an Arc Routing Problem, specifically as min–max k postmen problems. The algorithm is illustrated with a real problem instance from an estate in Gauteng, South Africa. The patrol routes generated by the algorithm provide a significant improvement in the even patrolling of the road network, and a more balanced work distribution among guards. The algorithm is also tested on several benchmark problems from literature.

Suggested Citation

  • E J Willemse & J W Joubert, 2012. "Applying min–max k postmen problems to the routing of security guards," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 63(2), pages 245-260, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:63:y:2012:i:2:p:245-260
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/v63/n2/pdf/jors201126a.pdf
    File Function: Link to full text PDF
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/v63/n2/full/jors201126a.html
    File Function: Link to full text HTML
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sukanya Samanta & Goutam Sen & Soumya Kanti Ghosh, 2022. "A literature review on police patrolling problems," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 316(2), pages 1063-1106, September.
    2. Jesica Armas & Peter Keenan & Angel A. Juan & Seán McGarraghy, 2019. "Solving large-scale time capacitated arc routing problems: from real-time heuristics to metaheuristics," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 273(1), pages 135-162, February.
    3. Chen, Xinyuan & Wu, Shining & Liu, Yannick & Wu, Weiwei & Wang, Shuaian, 2022. "A patrol routing problem for maritime Crime-Fighting," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    4. Wei Yu, 2023. "Improved approximation algorithms for some min–max postmen cover problems with applications to the min–max subtree cover," Mathematical Methods of Operations Research, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research (GOR);Nederlands Genootschap voor Besliskunde (NGB), vol. 97(1), pages 135-157, February.
    5. Elena Fernández & Jessica Rodríguez-Pereira, 2017. "Multi-depot rural postman problems," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 25(2), pages 340-372, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:63:y:2012:i:2:p:245-260. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.