Allocation of patrolmen in urban areas – a case study

In this paper, a Goal Programming model was proposed for optimal deployment of patrolmen in urban areas. To demonstrate the model, we focus on Visakhapatnam city as a case study, for allocating the patrolmen to various road segments in different shifts within the patrolling region. The city road segments were divided into (a) city‐link road segments; (b) intra‐city road segments; and (c) by‐pass road segments. In this study, different goals such as total patrolmen, minimum shift requirement, total budget, estimated accident reduction and accident rate reduction in high accident‐prone areas are considered. By considering these goals, four cases are formulated to allocate the patrolmen in each road segment and to each shift. In case 1, minimisation of all these goals is considered. Allocation of patrolmen in high accident‐prone areas and accident rate reduction goals are minimised in case 2. Minimum shift requirement goal is considered in case 3. In case 4 total budget goal is considered.