Routes Optimization of Elderly Meal Delivery in Xinjiekou Community of Central Beijing
针对北京新街口社区老年餐配送距离不足的问题，建立数学模型结合GIS算法优化配送路线，找到成本最低的配送中心和最短配送路径。
As the population of China is aging rapidly, home-based care is a major way for elderly people. Home-based care requires highly-efficience of commercial systems and social service systems. A number of restaurants in China's cities serve elderly meals for the elderly in considerition of their cooking difficulties. Our previous fieldwork in Beijing found that the elderly meals are offered at comparatively low prices. Due to the fact that the maximum total distance the current delivery system can travel is much shorter than what the elderly ask for, those certain restaurants which offer elderly meals cannot render enough delivery service. In order to solve this problem, this paper aims at an efficient elderly meal delivery process. The project establishes a mathematical model which contains variables of the delivery time and delivery cost, etc. It combines with a variety of algorithms of GIS and logistics to explore the optimal route of elderly meal delivery system within the limit of time and cost. The conclusions are as follows. Firstly, a distribution center of elderly meals' delivery could be found out by the methodology of Travel Salesman Problem and dynamic programming methods, which is able to minimize the cost of delivery. Secondly, the shortest delivery route is worked out by using the function of network analysis in GIS. And the restaurant where the shortest route starts at could be taken as the most ideal place to serve elderly meals.