IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v17y2025i21p9458-d1779041.html

Advancing Sustainable Tourism Through Smart Wheelchair Optimization: A Mixed-Integer Linear Programming Framework for Inclusive Travel

Author

Listed:
  • Pannee Suanpang

    (Department of Information Technology, Suan Dusit University, Bangkok 10300, Thailand
    Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Kuala Terengganu 21300, Malaysia)

  • Thanatchai Kulworawanichpong

    (School of Electrical Engineering, Suranaree University of Technology, Nakhon Ratchasima 30000, Thailand)

  • Chanchai Techawatcharapaikul

    (Department of Electrical Engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok 10140, Thailand)

  • Pitchaya Jamjuntr

    (Department of Electrical Engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok 10140, Thailand)

  • Fazida Karim

    (Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Kuala Terengganu 21300, Malaysia)

  • Kittisak Wongmahesak

    (Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Kuala Terengganu 21300, Malaysia
    Faculty of Political Science, North Bangkok University, Bangkok 10220, Thailand
    Publication Research Institute and Community Service, Universitas Muhammadiyah Sidenreng Rappang, Sidenreng Rappang Regency 91651, Sulawesi Selatan, Indonesia)

Abstract

Accessible tourism is a critical aspect of sustainable development, yet many Southeast Asian destinations lack sufficient infrastructure and services for elderly and disabled travelers. This study develops a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) framework to optimize travel itineraries, balancing cost, accessibility, and cultural–environmental priorities. A national accessibility database for Thailand was created, encompassing airports, hospitals, public transport nodes, cultural landmarks, and natural attractions. Compared to baseline conventional itineraries—defined as standard travel routes planned without specific accessibility considerations or optimization techniques—the MILP-optimized routes reduce average travel time by 15–20% and improve accessibility scores by 25%. Sensitivity analyses reveal trade-offs between economic efficiency, inclusivity, and infrastructure capacity, while a schematic accessibility network highlights structural fragmentation among airports, hospitals, and secondary attractions. Scenario analyses show that stricter accessibility thresholds improve inclusivity (index: 0.65 to 0.80) but restrict destination options, whereas high-demand scenarios increase costs and reduce inclusivity. A survey of 30 smart wheelchair users indicates high satisfaction with individualized programs and GPS connectivity. These findings underscore the need for investment in multimodal integration, accessibility upgrades, and a national database to enhance inclusive tourism planning. The framework is transferable to other ASEAN countries, contributing to SDG 3, 8, and 11. Overall, this study should be viewed as a prototype or exploratory contribution, with limitations in real-time applicability, generalizability, and implementation of environmental and ethical aspects.

Suggested Citation

  • Pannee Suanpang & Thanatchai Kulworawanichpong & Chanchai Techawatcharapaikul & Pitchaya Jamjuntr & Fazida Karim & Kittisak Wongmahesak, 2025. "Advancing Sustainable Tourism Through Smart Wheelchair Optimization: A Mixed-Integer Linear Programming Framework for Inclusive Travel," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-36, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:21:p:9458-:d:1779041
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/21/9458/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/21/9458/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nafiah Ariyani & Akhmad Fauzi, 2024. "Unlocking Sustainable Rural Tourism to Support Rural Development: A Bayesian Approach to Managing Water-Based Destinations in Indonesia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-18, June.
    2. Suparak Suriyankietkaew & Krittawit Krittayaruangroj & Sukanda Thinthan & Syamol Lumlongrut, 2025. "Community Capitals Framework for Sustainable Development: A Qualitative Study of Creative Tourism in Ban Chiang World Heritage Site," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-26, April.
    3. Daniel Sernández-Iglesias & Llanos Tobarra & Rafael Pastor-Vargas & Antonio Robles-Gómez & Pedro Vidal-Balboa & João Sarraipa, 2025. "Internet of Things Platform for Assessment and Research on Cybersecurity of Smart Rural Environments," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-26, August.
    4. Adelina Zeqiri & Adel Ben Youssef & Teja Maherzi Zahar, 2025. "The Role of Digital Tourism Platforms in Advancing Sustainable Development Goals in the Industry 4.0 Era," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-24, April.
    5. United Nations UN, 2015. "Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development," Working Papers id:7559, eSocialSciences.
    6. Pannee Suanpang & Pattanaphong Pothipassa, 2024. "Integrating Generative AI and IoT for Sustainable Smart Tourism Destinations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-34, August.
    7. Georgios Lampropoulos & Theofylaktos Anastasiadis & Juan Garzón, 2025. "Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in Exergaming," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-30, July.
    8. Didem Kutlu & Murad Alpaslan Kasalak & Mehmet Bahar, 2025. "Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Outdoor Recreation: Insights from Visitor and Business Perspectives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-26, April.
    9. Maria Giovina Pasca & Grazia Chiara Elmo & Gabriella Arcese & Giulio Mario Cappelletti & Olimpia Martucci, 2022. "Accessible Tourism in Protected Natural Areas: An Empirical Study in the Lazio Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-12, February.
    10. Sullivan, James L. & Novak, David C., 2024. "A method for evaluating accessibility in transportation problems considering social vulnerability," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 317(3), pages 646-659.
    11. Elmira Jamei & Melissa Chan & Hing Wah Chau & Eric Gaisie & Katrin Lättman, 2022. "Perceived Accessibility and Key Influencing Factors in Transportation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-22, August.
    12. Muhammad Awais-E-Yazdan & Virgil Popescu & Ramona Birau & Iuliana Carmen Bărbăcioru, 2025. "Enhancing Tourist’s Perceived Safety and Their Behavioral Intention in Thailand: A Pathway to Sustainable Tourism and Sustainable Economic Growth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(10), pages 1-17, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paulina Schiappacasse & Bernhard Müller & Le Thuy Linh, 2019. "Towards Responsible Aggregate Mining in Vietnam," Resources, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-15, August.
    2. Pina Puntillo, 2023. "Circular economy business models: Towards achieving sustainable development goals in the waste management sector—Empirical evidence and theoretical implications," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(2), pages 941-954, March.
    3. Mariana Chudnovsky & Diana Martínez Medina & Agustín Filippo, 2026. "Parity in Public Administration as a Moving Target: The Role of Women Policy Agencies in Mexico," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(1), pages 60-76, February.
    4. Schlör, Holger & Venghaus, Sandra & Hake, Jürgen-Friedrich, 2018. "The FEW-Nexus city index – Measuring urban resilience," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 382-392.
    5. Jean-Louis Combes & Alexandru Minea & Pegdéwendé Nestor Sawadogo, 2019. "Assessing the effects of combating illicit financial flows on domestic tax revenue mobilization in developing countries," CERDI Working papers halshs-02019073, HAL.
    6. Samed Yasin Öztürk & Gonca Yangın Ekşi, 2025. "Fostering Intercultural Competence through Telecollaboration on SDGs: A Multinational Study With Student Teachers," SAGE Open, , vol. 15(4), pages 21582440251, November.
    7. Nelson, Ewan & Warren, Peter, 2020. "UK transport decoupling: On track for clean growth in transport?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 39-51.
    8. Ibrahim Ari & Muammer Koc, 2018. "Sustainable Financing for Sustainable Development: Understanding the Interrelations between Public Investment and Sovereign Debt," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-25, October.
    9. R. Ebrahimi & S. Choobchian & H. Farhadian & I. Goli & E. Farmandeh & H. Azadi, 2022. "Investigating the effect of vocational education and training on rural women’s empowerment," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-11, December.
    10. Lampros Lamprinidis, 2025. "Socially Responsible Public Procurement and the Social Economy: European and Global Institutional Approaches," Journal of Public Policy and Administration, IPRJB, vol. 10(1), pages 46-62.
    11. Benjamin Nölting & Bettina König & Anne B. Zimmermann & Antonietta Di Giulio & Martina Schäfer & Flurina Schneider, 2022. "Dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic: an opportunity to reflect on sustainability research," Sustainability Nexus Forum, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 11-27, December.
    12. Nakakawa, Frances & Mugisha, Johnny & Kaaya, Archileo N. & Tumwesigye, Nazarius M. & Hennessey, Martina, 2024. "Nutrition education effects on food and nutrition security for women living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    13. Rashmi Jaipal, 2017. "Psychology at the Crossroads," Psychology and Developing Societies, , vol. 29(2), pages 125-159, September.
    14. Bárbara Galleli & Elder Semprebon & Joyce Aparecida Ramos dos Santos & Noah Emanuel Brito Teles & Mateus Santos de Freitas-Martins & Raquel Teodoro da Silva Onevetch, 2021. "Institutional Pressures, Sustainable Development Goals and COVID-19: How Are Organisations Engaging?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-21, November.
    15. Anna Napiórkowska & Piotr Zaborek & Marzanna Katarzyna Witek-Hajduk & Anna Grudecka, 2025. "Individual Cultural Values and Charitable Crowdfunding: Driving Social Sustainability Through Consumer Engagement," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(11), pages 1-26, June.
    16. Oleksandr Melnychenko, 2025. "Artificial Intelligence in Regulating Production Volumes for Sustainable Development: Qualitative and Quantitative Aspects," Virtual Economics, The London Academy of Science and Business, vol. 8(1), pages 40-57, March.
    17. Sagarika Dey & Priyanka Devi, 2019. "Impact of TVET on Labour Market Outcomes and Women’s Empowerment in Rural Areas: A Case Study from Cachar District, Assam," Indian Journal of Human Development, , vol. 13(3), pages 357-371, December.
    18. Rostami-Tabar, Bahman & Ali, Mohammad M. & Hong, Tao & Hyndman, Rob J. & Porter, Michael D. & Syntetos, Aris, 2022. "Forecasting for social good," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 1245-1257.
    19. Maria Sassi, 2020. "A SEM Approach to the Direct and Indirect Links between WaSH Services and Access to Food in Countries in Protracted Crises: The Case of Western Bahr-el-Ghazal State, South Sudan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-13, November.
    20. Seebacher, Moritz, 2023. "Pathways to progress: The complementarity of bicycles and road infrastructure for girls’ education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:21:p:9458-:d:1779041. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.