A logistics model for emergency supply of critical items in the aftermath of a disaster

• Published in: Socio-economic planning sciences Vol. 45; no. 4; pp. 132 - 145
• Main Authors: Lin, Yen-Hung, Batta, Rajan, Rogerson, Peter A., Blatt, Alan, Flanigan, Marie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2011; Elsevier
• Series: Socio-Economic Planning Sciences
• Subjects: Case studies; Disaster relief; Humanitarian logistics; Logistics; Natural disasters; Prioritizing delivery; Supply; Transport; Vehicle routing problem; Vehicle routing problem Humanitarian logistics Prioritizing delivery Disaster relief; Victims; Prioritizing delivery; Humanitarian logistics; Vehicle routing problem; Disaster relief
• ISSN: 0038-0121; 1873-6041
• DOI: 10.1016/j.seps.2011.04.003

This paper proposes a logistics model for delivery of prioritized items in disaster relief operations. It considers multi-items, multi-vehicles, multi-periods, soft time windows, and a split delivery strategy scenario, and is formulated as a multi-objective integer programming model. To effectively solve this model we limit the number of available tours. Two heuristic approaches are introduced for this purpose. The first approach is based on a genetic algorithm, while the second approach is developed by decomposing the original problem. We compare these two approaches via a computational study. The multi-objective problem is converted to a single-objective problem by the weighted sum method. A case study is presented to illustrate the potential applicability of our model. Also, presented is a comparison of our model with that proposed in a recent paper by Balcik et al. [6]. The results show that our proposed model outperforms theirs in terms of delivering prioritized items over several time periods.