Hybrid metaheuristics for solving a home health care routing and scheduling problem with time windows, synchronized visits and lunch breaks

The home health care routing and scheduling problem (HHCRSP), a challenging operational problem in the field of home health care (HHC), consists of assigning suitable caregivers to serve patients at their homes and optimizing a set of caregiver’s visits according to certain criteria. Besides the time windows and qualifications of caregivers that are generally considered in HHCRSP, this study further concerns three practical constraints, which...