Supply planning for shelters and emergency management crews

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of supplying provisions to civilians affected by an emergency and to the intervention groups that provide post emergency relief. We define the Emergency Supply using Heterogeneous Fleet Problem (ESHFP) using a Mixed Integer Linear Programming mathematical model that describes the complexities involved in these operations. Furthermore, we propose a novel heuristic algorithm which constructs a plan comprising a set of efficient vehicle routes in order to minimize the total supply time, respecting constraints concerning timing, demand, capacity and supply. The characteristics of the problem have been studied by solving an extensive set of test cases. The efficiency and practicality of the algorithm has been tested by applying it to a large scale ESHFP instance and to a case study involving a forest fire in the Province of Teruel, Spain.