A hybrid memetic-ant colony optimization algorithm for the home health care problem with time window, synchronization and working time balancing

This paper addresses the routing and scheduling of caregivers in a home health care problem. In order to obtain a valid planning, some skill, time window, and synchronization constraints must be met. Since the increase in demand, organizations providing home health care are eager to optimize the planning of caregivers which is often performed manually. Thus, many works have emerged on this research problem, taking into account new constraints gradually. One interesting aspect is the workload balancing between caregivers. Indeed, the workload must be roughly the same to obtain fairness. Already applied successfully to similar problems, the ant colony optimization algorithm has never been applied to the home health care problem. As a result, an original hybrid algorithm combining memetic and ant colony optimization algorithm is suggested for solving the home health care problem with working time balancing. Computational results on benchmark instances from the literature highlight the efficiency of the proposed hybrid algorithm in comparison with other metaheuristics and a commercial optimization solver.