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Bicycling enthusiasts have been organizing community events in US cities to demonstrate how bicycles may be of use in the aftermath of a disaster event. The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceived value of these events and levels of engagement in the same amongst emergency managers, community organizers and bicycling advocates.

Data were collected through 21 in-depth, telephone interviews with emergency management officials and bicycling advocates in bicycle-friendly jurisdictions in the USA and analyzed using initial and focused coding, analytic memos and theoretical sorting.

The study found that event organizers and other bicycle advocates widely embraced the concept as a means to change societal perceptions of bicycles as viable modes of transportation, indicating at least some level of interest in taking an active role in its pursuit. Emergency managers were generally receptive to the idea, but they largely saw the value as restricted to raising public awareness about hazards and individual preparedness measures; and they mostly envisioned for themselves a minimal role in event planning and execution.

The findings suggest that when operating in a resource-poor environment with limited public and political support, there are innovative partnerships and ideas that can be successfully leveraged to advance multiple purposes.

Almost no empirical research has looked at the disaster relief trial concept, given the relative newness and novelty of the idea. An examination of perceived value of disaster-oriented community bicycling events seems warranted as such events continue to grow in existing locations and emerge in new locales each year.

This paper aims to discuss search and rescue (SAR) and disaster relief robot developments, trials and applications and to answer the question posed in the title.

Following a short introduction, this first describes Integrated Components for Assisted Rescue and Unmanned Search operations, a recent, collaborative, European research project, and euRathlon, a major robotics competition. It then highlights the role of the centre for robot-assisted search and rescue, and provides examples of the deployment of terrestrial, marine and airborne robots in real SAR and disaster relief situations. It concludes with a brief discussion.

This shows that SAR and disaster relief robots are the topic of an extensive development effort, and many have performed well in simulated disaster scenarios. Terrestrial, marine and airborne robots have been used in many real disaster relief situations since 2001, and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles has proliferated due to recent technological developments. Robots now play an important role in supporting SAR teams, and this will certainly increase as the technologies are developed further.

In an era characterized by extreme weather events and continuing military conflicts, robots play an increasingly important role in supporting human disaster response teams. This article provides details of developments, trials and real-world deployments of such robots.

This research paper aims to identify and evaluate the enabling factors of agility capability in humanitarian relief chain network.

The research phases were implemented based on an integrated framework. First, a reference framework of the enablers has been constructed based on a literature review. Then, a hybrid evaluation approach is applied that combines fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and analytic network process (ANP) to achieve reliable results. It provides a road map to identify and evaluate the interactions between the enabling factors and determines the weights correspond to their relative importance. This approach takes advantage of fuzzy set theory to deal with ambiguities, uncertainties and vagueness inherent in the evaluation process.

Relief chain agility is a vital determinant of the effectiveness to succeed humanitarian missions during and after natural and unnatural disasters such as earthquakes, epidemics and terrorist attacks. Results shed light on the essential enabling factors, relationships among them, and their importance for developing humanitarian relief chain agility enhancing the overall performance quality.

The integrated framework is implemented for the Red Crescent, a nongovernmental organization in Iran, which is trying to optimize the agility of their humanitarian relief chain network. In short, the findings are beneficial for identification and utilization of the essential prerequisites of agility in order to develop an agile humanitarian relief chain.

Due to climate change and an increasing concentration of the world’s population in vulnerable areas, how to manage catastrophe risk efficiently and cover disaster losses fairly is still a universal dilemma.

This paper applies a law and economic approach.

China’s mechanism for managing catastrophic disaster risk is in many ways unique. It emphasizes government responsibilities and works well in many respects, especially in disaster emergency relief. Nonetheless, China’s mechanism which has the vestige of a centrally planned economy needs reform.

I propose a catastrophe insurance market-enhancing framework which marries the merits of both the market and government to manage catastrophe risks. There are three pillars of the framework: (i) sustaining a strong and capable government; (ii) government enhancement of the market, neither supplanting nor retarding it; (iii) legalizing the relationship between government and market to prevent government from undermining well-functioning market operations. A catastrophe insurance market-enhancing framework may provide insights for developing catastrophe insurance in China and other transitional nations.

First, this paper analyzes China’s mechanism for managing catastrophic disaster risks and China’s approach which emphasizes government responsibilities will shed light on solving how to manage catastrophe risk efficiently and cover disaster losses fairly. Second, this paper starts a broader discussion about government stimulation of developing catastrophe insurance and this framework can stimulate attention to solve the universal dilemma.

The purpose of this paper is to solve a post-disaster humanitarian logistics problem in which medical assistance teams are dispatched and the relief supplies are distributed among demand points.

A mixed integer-programming model and a two-stage hybrid metaheuristic method are developed to solve the problem. Problem instances of various sizes as well as a numerical example based on the 2016 Kyushu Earthquake in Japan are used to test the proposed model and algorithm.

Computational results based on comparisons with the state-of-the-art commercial software show that the proposed approach can quickly find near-optimal solutions, which is highly desirable in emergency situations.

Real data of the parameters of the model are difficult to obtain. Future collaborations with organizations such as Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency can be extremely helpful in collecting data in humanitarian logistics research.

The proposed model and algorithm can help governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to effectively and efficiently allocate and coordinate different types of humanitarian relief resources, especially when these resources are limited.

This paper is among the first ones to consider both medical team scheduling (routing) and relief aid distribution as decision variables in the humanitarian logistics field. The contributions include developing a mathematical model and a heuristic algorithm, illustrating the model and algorithm using a numerical example, and providing a decision support tool for governments and NGOs to manage the relief resources in disasters.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyse the critical success factors (CSFs) of humanitarian supply chains in mitigating the impact of cyclones in the Indian context using the fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) approach.

The selection of CSFs of humanitarian supply chains has been done through several secondary sources and discussion with 12 disaster experts. Thereafter, DEMATEL, an expert judgement-based technique, has been used for selecting, building and analysing a structural model that involves causal relationships between the set of identified CSFs. Furthermore, to accommodate the vagueness involved in human judgement, fuzzy logic is incorporated with the DEMATEL.

Based on a literature survey and expert judgement, total 16 CSFs of humanitarian supply chains have been segmented into cause and effect groups based upon their relative influencing scores. The analysis shows that the out of 16 CSFs, ten CSFs have been categorised into cause group CSFs and six as the effect group CSFs.

The findings of this study will help disaster management institutions, humanitarian agencies, logisticians, NGOs and cyclone-prone countries to improve the critical ingredients in designing and executing an effective cyclone response operation.

In this study, fuzzy DEMATEL has been applied to identify and analyse the CSFs of humanitarian supply chains for the cyclone disaster response in the Indian context, which is a novel contribution widening the existing knowledge in humanitarian relief domain.

This paper intends to explore and appraise the humanitarian supply chain management enablers (HSCMEs) for efficient and effective humanitarian operations. This research aims to analyze the interaction of enablers for humanitarian supply chain management (HSCM) using a proposed hybrid framework consists of fuzzy Delphi (FD), interpretive structural modeling (ISM)–matriced impacts croises multiplication appliquee a un classement (MICMAC) and revised Simos approach.

This research is deliberate to identify 28 HSCMEs through a literature review and experts' opinions; out of which 20 HSCMEs are selected using FD. ISM is applied to know contextual relationship among the selected HSCMEs for developing a hierarchical model. The MICMAC analysis classifies the HSCMEs based on driving power and dependence power to validate the developed hierarchical ISM structure. The revised Simos technique is used to prioritize the HSCMEs to access its relative significance in humanitarian operations.

The finding of the analysis suggests that government policy and leadership support obtained the highest priority, having high driving power and low dependence power is significantly strategic and emerged as the leading driver for the HSCM implementation.

ISM model presents an insight into interrelationship among HSCMEs, but this cannot quantify the impact of each HSCMEs.

Disaster relief aid agencies and stakeholders may focus on the enablers having high driving power and higher weight in designing and executing an effective and efficient humanitarian supply chain and to improve their activities and strategies of HSCM.

This research helps humanitarian logisticians and humanitarian organizations to make better decisions to improve their operational performance in pre and postdisaster phases.

This paper explores the application of proposed hybrid framework to analyze the HSCMEs that can be considered as the original contribution.

Natural disasters, occurring with increasing frequency are mobilizing humanitarian agencies to provide relief response. Current protocols that rely heavily on donated clothing as clothing aid are neither effective nor efficient. The purpose of this paper is to investigate survivors’ clothing needs during the relief phase of a natural disaster in order that current protocol might be improved. The focus is on clothing use from the perspectives of survivors who will wear it, relief workers and aid agencies that will disperse it.

This qualitative study included needs analysis focus groups with survivors, interviews with relief aid workers and senior humanitarian agency administrators. All respondents were residents of and/or impacted by the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. Questions focused on relief aid protocol, clothing needs and mandatory requirements for a design solution.

Data gathered revealed a myriad of design priorities and participants emphasized that garments be culturally and climatically appropriate and universal in design. Based on these criteria, a prototype (named Survival Plus) was created using the Functional, Expressive and Aesthetic design framework as proposed by Lamb and Kallal (1992).

Further research may be undertaken to field test proposed Survival Plus prototype to evaluate the design and subsequent findings be incorporated in its design.

Academic knowledge about this aspect of disaster management and response is scarce. This participatory study of clothing needs of survivors is of particular benefit to emergency preparedness initiatives and humanitarian aid providers in their delivery of clothing aid.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of property rights institutions to disaster relief efforts, with a focus on the US Federal Emergency Management Agency in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The paper utilizes public choice, Austrian, and new institutional analyses of bureaucracy. It discusses private and public sector responses to the situation in New Orleans following Katrina and to disasters in general, and compares the institutional frameworks that develop over time in both sectors.

The paper finds that a large and bureaucratized response to disasters hinders economic calculation, incentive structure, and property rights institutions, all of which are crucial for rapid disaster response, the relief of human suffering, the minimization of knowledge problems, and the promotion of an efficient allocation of resources.

This research suggests that the role of the price system in allocating resources is especially important following disasters and that in order to ensure relief efforts are as efficient as possible, public‐sector actors should do nothing to impede them. It also suggests that the incentives to prepare an efficient emergency preparedness program are greater when those most affected by potential disasters are held responsible for their implementation.

The paper provides a critical evaluation of the role of highly centralized approaches to disaster relief.