Multi-objective medical supplies distribution open vehicle routing problem with fairness and timeliness under major public health emergencies

Abstract

Fair and timely delivery of supplies plays a critical role under major public health emergencies. In this paper, aiming at fairness and timeliness, an optimization model of open vehicle routing problem for medical supplies distribution is established considering the urgency of the demand. We adopt a differential evolutionary algorithm with fast non-dominated solution sorting to solve the proposed model, obtaining an approximate Pareto optimal solution set. Through the comparison of algorithms, the results showed that the differential evolutionary algorithm with non-dominated sorting is superior with a shorter runtime and more diverse solutions, while the epsilon constraint method has more accurate solutions. In the case verification, the quality of the solutions of both algorithms was within the acceptable range, but the runtime of the epsilon constraint method was too long to be applicable. The results can provide theoretical suggestions and practical guidance for decision-makers in emergency supplies distribution.