The elderly centre location problem

Increased human life expectancy combined with declining birth rates around the globe has led to ageing populations, particularly in the developed world. This phenomenon brings about increased dependency ratios and calls for setting new policies for the elderly citizens. This comprises provision of a set of life-enhancing services in an accessible and equitable way. In this paper, we consider the multi-period problem of locating senior centres offering these services to the elderly population with budget constraints and capacity limitations. Both consistent and inconsistent versions of the problem are considered, aiming at identifying the set of facilities to operate in each region at each period, the service type(s) to be offered and the allocation of budget in each period to location and operation of facilities. A mixed integer mathematical programming model is presented, an efficient iterated local search procedure is proposed and managerial insights are provided.