Selection of rural villages as volunteer centers for emergency response

Abstract

Rural areas are typically sparsely populated, and coverage from emergency services is weak. In some such areas in Sweden, professional emergency services train civilian volunteers in providing help for certain types of emergencies. In case of an emergency, they are alerted on their mobile phones and are primarily expected to provide help in the vicinity of their homes. Due to limited resources, it is impossible to include all villages in the volunteer initiative, making the selection of the most beneficial villages for emergency response important. However, this decision is not always trivial to make. Therefore, we propose an optimization model to determine which villages should be included in this initiative to achieve the best possible emergency response coverage. The model is used in a case study for a large Swedish fire and rescue service organization, and based on the results, they have started volunteer centers in two villages.