A Two-Phase Algorithm for Relief Distribution Center Selection and Vehicle Routing under Emergency Management

Abstract

The natural disasters caused enormous casualties and economic loss in recent years Therefore the emergency management has become more and more important In order to mitigate the casualties after the occurrence of the disaster effective emergency logistics is necessary However the planning of emergency logistics is still insufficient This research tackles the location-routing problem of URDCs(Urgent Relief Distribution Centers) The decisions include (1) how many URDCs to locate (2) where the location of URDCs should be and (3) which URDCs to be assign to which demand node (4) which demand nodes to be assign to which routes and (5) in what order the demand should be served on each route In addition the vehicles routes will be improved by the on-line routes improvement algorithm when considering the occurrence of new demand To solve these problems this research proposes a two-phase algorithm to help government agencies make decisions The two-phase algorithm includes the URDCs location-routing algorithm and on-line routes improvement algorithm The URDCs location-routing algorithm is proposed to determine the location of URDCs and the initial routes in first phase The on-line routes improvement algorithm is developed to improve the routes to minimize the service time considering the updating information of demand and network condition The empirical experiment is tested by using the network of Kaohsiung city

Date of Award	2014 Aug 30
Original language	English
Supervisor	Ta-Yin Hu (Supervisor)