Delivering blood from collection sites to labs is a fast-paced, labour-intensive process. Donated blood can deteriorate within a few hours at room temperature, leaving little room to manoeuvre in case of unexpected traffic congestion or other delays between collection sites and blood centres.
But if you can't get through traffic, you can go over it, thanks to drone technology.
In a study published in the journal Computers & Operations Research, Concordia PhD candidate Amirhossein Abbaszadeh and Hossein Hashemi Doulabi, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Aerospace Engineering, present a new optimization model that uses drones to support mobile blood donation vehicles ("bloodmobiles"). The model offers a faster, more efficient and more reliable way to transport donated blood in cities.
Amirhossein Abbaszadeh: "Vehicle routing problems are not new to operations research, but the perishability of blood brings a time-sensitive challenge that changes how routes must be planned,"Powered by smart logistics
The researchers' Drone-Aided Mobile Blood Collection Problem is the first integrated framework that coordinates the movements of both bloodmobiles and drones to preserve blood freshness and improve overall system performance.
At its heart is a smart logistics system where bloodmobiles travel to multiple collection sites while drones shuttle between them and a central blood centre. This method eliminates delays caused by traffic and ensures that freshly donated blood reaches the blood centre quickly for processing into its components - such as platelets, which must be separated within six hours.
The researchers achieved this by developing a mixed-integer linear programming model that synchronizes the routes, schedules and collection activities of both bloodmobiles and drones. Because such a large-scale optimization problem is computationally demanding, the team also designed a rolling-horizon-based matheuristic algorithm. This type of algorithm breaks the problem into smaller, more manageable parts, solving sequentially while simultaneously exploring nearby alternatives to find better ones.
"Vehicle routing problems are not new to operations research, but the perishability of blood brings a time-sensitive challenge that changes how routes must be planned," says Abbaszadeh. "That's when I thought of using drones."
Unlike previous studies that treated bloodmobiles and drones as separate systems, this work fully integrates their operations. Drones can take off from, land on or travel aboard bloodmobiles, allowing flexible coordination across multiple collection points without fixed infrastructure.
The model also considers the age of the blood - the time elapsed since donation - as a key optimization factor, rewarding fresher blood deliveries to ensure quality.
Putting the model to the test
The researchers used Quebec City as a real-world case study to test their model. They identified 13 potential collection sites, estimated the number of potential donors at each site and calculated the distance to the nearest blood centre.
"We used Google Maps to calculate the road distance and the most direct flight path since drones don't need to use roads," explains Abbaszadeh.
"We performed several analyses using different parameters: What if we used drones that had more load capacity, higher battery capacity or moved at higher speeds? We then compared the drone-aided system to the bloodmobile-only system."
They found that adding drones to the blood collection fleet significantly reduced transport times. It also increased hourly delivery rates and maintained better consistency in blood freshness.
The authors write that their findings demonstrate the real potential of drone-assisted logistics in healthcare supply chains, particularly in time-critical operations like blood collection. They add that their framework could be adapted to other humanitarian or medical delivery contexts where speed, coordination and freshness are essential.
Read the cited paper: "Drone-Aided Mobile Blood Collection Problem"
