Mobility & Logistics as a Service for Healthcare (MLaaS4H): Framework, Network Design and Routing Models

This paper develops integrated network design and routing models for healthcare mobility systems within the Mobility & Logistics as a Service for Healthcare (MLaaS4H) paradigm. Healthcare systems are characterized by interdependent mobility flows involving patients, healthcare professionals, medical devices, and mobile healthcare units. The existing literature typically focuses on isolated routing, network design, or facility location problems, without explicitly addressing the interactions among these mobility flows. The research question addressed in this paper is: How can an integrated modelling framework capture the interactions among multiple healthcare-related mobility flows and support the design and routing of healthcare mobility systems? To address this gap, this paper proposes an integrated modelling framework that extends the concepts of Sustainable Mobility as a Service (S-MaaS) and Logistics as a Service (LaaS) to healthcare contexts, explicitly capturing the interactions among multiple healthcare-related mobility flows. From a decision-making perspective, the proposed framework provides a unified support tool for improving the efficiency, accessibility, and reliability of healthcare mobility systems. The main contribution of this work lies in the formalization of the MLaaS4H paradigm and the specification of integrated optimization models that enable bridging the gap between transport network design and the healthcare context. Selected methodological components are implemented and evaluated on a controlled benchmark network.