A Constructive Heuristic for Police Patrol Routing Problems

Abstract

Police patrol routing problem (PPRP) attracts researchers’ attention especially on artifitial inteligence. The challenge here is that a limited number of patrols cover a wide range of area that includes several hotspots. In this study, a new model for PPRP is proposed simulating the Solomon’s benchmark for vehicle routing problem with time windows. This model can solve this problem by maximising the coverage of hotspots with frequencies of high priority locations while ensuring the feasibility of routes. Two constructive greedy heuristics are developed to generate the initial solution of the PPRP: highest priority greedy heuristic (HPGH) and nearest neighbour greedy heuristic (NNGH). Experimental results show that the simulated Solomon’s benchmark is suitable to represent PPRP. In addition, results illustrate that NNGH is more efficient to construct feasible solution than HPGH