Simultaneous planning for disaster road clearance and distribution of relief goods: a basic model and an exact solution method

Abstract

In recent years, more and more disasters occurred. Additionally, the amount of people affected by disasters increased. Because of this, it is of great importance to perform the relief operations efficiently in order to alleviate the suffering of the disaster victims. Immediately after the occurrence of a disaster, there is an urgent need for delivering relief goods to demand locations and affected regions, respectively. Due to roads being blocked or damaged by debris, some demand locations may be out of reach and therefore the delivery of relief goods is hampered. This paper investigates the basic problem of simultaneously unblocking roads in order to make demand locations accessible and delivering relief goods in order to satisfy demand. Strict deadlines for the delivery of relief goods are considered at the demand locations. A formal problem statement is provided, and its computational complexity is analyzed. Additionally, a mixed integer programming model is developed and an exact solution method based on a branch and bound approach is proposed. A computational study investigating the performance of the model formulation and the branch and bound algorithm is conducted.

Two-stage stochastic formulation for relief operations with multiple agencies in simultaneous disasters

“…They also manage the delivery of relief using available vehicles. Similar to the case of human resources, the number of vehicles is limited and it affects the cost of operations (Briskorn et al 2020 ).…”

A decomposition-based heuristic for a multicrew coordinated road restoration problem

“…The latency of a critical node is defined as the time it takes from the beginning of the planning horizon until that node is served. Shin et al (2019) and Briskorn et al (2020) also addressed the integration of road restoration and relief distribution operations. Shin et al (2019) proposed a mixed integer linear programming model to provide a plan for the road clearance and relief distribution teams such that damaged roads are repaired and relief items are supplied to demand locations.…”

“…Shin et al (2019) proposed a mixed integer linear programming model to provide a plan for the road clearance and relief distribution teams such that damaged roads are repaired and relief items are supplied to demand locations. Briskorn et al (2020) addressed a problem to determine the blocked edges to unblock and the delivery amount from each supply node to each demand node in each period, while minimizing the duration of the road clearance activities. Other objectives and operational challenges have been incorporated in such studies.…”

Dynamic analysis of NGO emergency relief goods supply: 2020 Hubei COVID-19 as a case

“…During COVID-19, the demand for medical and daily living supplies has also increased significantly ( 6 ). Immediately after the occurrence of an emergency in the response phase, it is vital that relief goods are delivered as quickly as possible to the victims in the affected regions ( 7 ) as shortages or delivery delays can result in serious losses ( 8 , 9 ). Therefore, to save the lives of the people in the affected regions ( 10 ), relief goods supply is a vital part of emergency relief operations.…”