Optimal Seat Allocation Under Social Distancing Constraints

Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic introduces new challenges and constraints for return to work business planning. We describe a space allocation problem that incorporates social distancing constraints while optimising the number of available safe workspaces in a return to work scenario. We propose and demonstrate a graph based approach that solves the optimisation problem via modelling as a bipartite graph of disconnected components over a graph of constraints. We compare results obtained with a constrained random walk and a linear programming approach.