A Heuristic Method for Balanced Graph Partitioning: An Application for the Demarcation of Preventive Police Patrol Areas

In this paper we describe a heuristic method, based on graph-partitioning algorithms, with the purpose of improving the demarcation of areas for police patrolling. This demarcation seeks to homogenize the number of crimes among the patrol regions. If the map of a particular region is taken as a graph, we can say that the problem faced by police forces (typically preventive police) is similar to the problem of finding balanced connected q partitions of graphs (BCPq). Since this is a problem belonging to the NP-Hard class, approximate algorithms are the most suitable for solving such a problem. The method described in this article obtains results nearest those considered optimal for the more general case of BCPq, for q≥2.