1. Operations research related to fire and rescue
services
Anna Gustafsson, PhD Student
anna.gustafsson@liu.se
ITN, Division of Communications and Transport Systems
Linköping University
5 th ISCRAM Summer School
August 15-24, 2012, Tilburg, the Netherlands

2. My Background
 Master of science
 Communications and Transport Systems – Quantitative Logistics
 Worked 2 years at Axfood – Swedish retail company
 Trainee 1 year
 Logistic partner; Dagab - Automated order flow
 PhD Student – started Nov. 2009
 Operations research for planning fire and rescue services – to find
more efficient ways to utilize fire and rescue resources
 Main supervisor – Jan Lundgren
 Co-supervisor – Tobias Andersson Granberg
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

3. Introduction
 Determine how many
emergency resources
that requires in a given
area.
 Where stations and
resources should be
located.
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

4. Introduction
 How many and what type
of resources should be
sent to a particular
incident?
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

5. Introduction
 How many and what type
of resources should be
sent to a particular
incident?
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

6. Introduction
 How resources should be
relocated depending on
the current situation.
 To maintain a good level
of preparedness in the
area.
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

7. Introduction
The response time is one of
the most important factors in
the rescue effort.
An adequate location can
reduce the response time!
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

8. Research project 1
 Case study
How fire and rescue resources should be located to meet the
demand in Östergötland County in Sweden.
 To minimize the response time to building fires and traffic
accidents.
 Developed a model to locate three types of resources,
manned differently.
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

9. Research project 1
 Consider both the first and
full response time when
locating the resources.
Min Foj Toj Doj
o O j J
Foj response time for a first response to
accident of type o in zone j
Toj response time for a full response to
accident of type o in zone j
Doj expected number of accidents of
type o in zone j
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

10. Research project 1
 Consider both the first and
full response time when
locating the resources.
6 min
Min Foj Toj Doj
o O j J
Foj response time for a first response to
accident of type o in zone j
Toj response time for a full response to
accident of type o in zone j
Doj expected number of accidents of
type o in zone j
10
Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

11. Research project 1
 Consider both the first and
full response time when
locating the resources.
11 min
6 min
Min Foj Toj Doj
o O j J
Foj response time for a first response to
accident of type o in zone j
Toj response time for a full response to
accident of type o in zone j
Doj expected number of accidents of
type o in zone j
11
Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

12. Research project 1
 Solutions have been produced for a number of different
scenarios using variable neighborhood search heuristic.
 By optimizing the locations for fire and rescue resources, the
response time can be reduced with around 20 %.
 The mean response times for first responses and full responses
are reduced by around 100 to 150 seconds in the optimized
solutions.
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

13. Research project 2
DYRK
 Explore the potential of working more dynamically with planning
and management of emergency resources.
 It is about planning, controlling and making decisions about
managing emergency resources depending on the current situation.
 The need for assistance varies during the day – resources are not
optimally located all the times.
 The resources are not always at the station.
 If a station’s resources are occupied, the preparedness will decrease in
the area around the station.
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

14. Preparedness
 Describes the ability to respond to accidents in the present and
in the future.
What we have What we need
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

15. Preparedness
 Describes the ability to respond to accidents in the present and
in the future.
What we have What we need
 We have developed a quantitative measure for preparedness
 To determine specific preparedness for handling a certain type of
incident.
 A basis for decision making and planning.
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

16. Preparedness
The goal is to constantly
maintain a good
preparedness in the area.
 Important that resources
arrive quickly in
emergency situations.
 Right type of resources
 Adequate staffing
Dynamic use of the
resources!
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

17. Research project 2
 Develop decision support tools that can support dynamic
planning of fire and rescue services.
 Calculate the preparedness and show how it change when specific
resources are moved.
 Propose which resources that should be dispatched to a specific
incident according to the alarm plan.
 Give suggestions about how resources should be located and
relocated.
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

18. Research project 2
 Collaborating with fire and rescue services in Sweden
 Test the developed tools
 Fire and rescue services in Sweden will perform a series of test
scenario.
 The tests will compare situations
when the decision maker have and
do not have access to the tools.
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Anna Gustafsson, ITN LiU

19. Thank you!
www.liu.se