An alternative heuristic for capacitated p-median problem (CPMP)

The p-median (PMP) has the objective of minimizing total distance, a customer/patient needs to travel in order to get a service. Various algorithms have been developed to solve the problem and in this paper, an alternative approach of Genetic Algorithm based heuristics is used to solve the problem in minimizing the travelled distance for a patient to get healthcare service. Combination of the nearly-optimal number of facilities to open and the random node order assignment is used to minimize the average traveled distance. The approach is used to solve a capacitated PMP (or CPMP) and found to solve all the CPMP in shorter time and in more promising result.