Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate US noncombatant evacuation operations (NEO) in South Korea and devise planning and management procedures that improve the efficiency of those missions. Design/methodology/approach It formulates a time-staged network model of the South Korean noncombatant evacuation system as a mixed integer linear program to determine an optimal flow configuration that minimizes the time required to complete an evacuation. This solution considers the capacity and resource constraints of multiple transportation modes and effectively allocates the limited assets across a time-staged network to create a feasible evacuation plan. That solution is post-processed and a vehicle routing procedure then produces a high resolution schedule for each individual asset throughout the entire duration of the NEO. Findings This work makes a clear improvement in the decision-making and resource allocation methodology currently used in a NEO on the Korea peninsula. It immediately provides previously unidentifiable information regarding the scope and requirements of a particular evacuation scenario and then produces an executable schedule for assets to facilitate mission accomplishment. Originality/value The significance of this work is not relegated only to evacuation operations on the Korean peninsula; there are numerous other NEO and natural disaster related scenarios that can benefit from this approach.