An emergency vehicle dispatching system for an electric utility in Chile

Chilean companies have only recently begun developing and implementing computerised systems to aid in decision making, related to the assignment and routing of vehicles. This paper presents the problem of assigning and routing repair vehicles for the Emergency Services Division of Chilectra S.A., the electricity utility for the city of Santiago, the capital of Chile. A computerised system based on heuristic algorithms was developed for vehicle routing with random demand which represented breakdowns that require a repair crew. An exponential smoothing method was implemented for the prognosis of breakdowns. Evaluation of the system's performance showed a 16% improvement in service quality as measured by the time required for servicing breakdowns under regular conditions and a 53% improvement under adverse climate conditions.