The post-disaster emergency planning problem with facility location and people/resource assignment

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to study a dynamic post-disaster emergency planning (PDEP) problem in an integrated network through the investigation of the selection of shelters, medical centers and distribution centers (DCs), and the allocation of evacuees and injured people. The resource and people assignment in multiple periods are considered.

Design/methodology/approach

A mathematical formulation is provided for the PDEP problem. The authors decompose the model into two sub-models as follows: the primary model is an integer programming model and the subproblem is a nonlinear programming model with continuous variables. The simulated annealing is used to solve the primary problem, and particle swarm optimization (PSO) mixed with beetle antennae search (BAS) is used to solve the subproblem.

Findings

The paper finds that BAS can increase the stability of PSO and keep the advantages of PSO’s rapid convergence. By implementing these algorithms on emergency planning after the Wenchuan earthquake that happened in China in 2008, this paper finds that the priority of different levels of injured people is influenced by several factors. Even within the same disaster, the priority of different levels of injured can be inconsistent because of the differences in resource levels.

Originality/value

The authors integrate the shelters, medical centers and DCs as a system, and simultaneously, consider evacuees and injured people and different resource assignments. The authors divide the injured people into three levels and use survival rate function to simulate the survival conditions of different people. The authors provide an improved PSO algorithm to solve the problem.

Citation

Wang, J., Situ, C. and Yu, M. (2020), "The post-disaster emergency planning problem with facility location and people/resource assignment", Kybernetes, Vol. 49 No. 10, pp. 2385-2418. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-04-2019-0289