Disaster Relief Routing Under Uncertainty: A Robust Optimization Approach

This report addresses the capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) and the split delivery vehicle routing problem (SDVRP) with uncertain travel times and demands when planning vehicle routes for delivering critical supplies to the affected population in need after a disaster. A robust optimization approach is used to formulate the CVRP and the SDVRP with uncertain travel times and demands for five objective functions: minimization of the total number of vehicles deployed (minV), minimization of the total travel times/travel costs (minT), minimization of the summation of arrival times (minS), minimization of the summation of demand-weighted arrival times (minD), and minimization of the latest arrival time (minL). The minS, minD, and minL are critical for deliveries to be fast and fair in routing for relief efforts, while the minV and minT are common cost-based objective functions in the traditional VRP. A two-stage heuristic method that combines the insertion algorithm and tabu search is used to solve the VRP models for large-scale problems. The solutions of the CVRP and the SDVRP are compared for different examples.

• Record URL:
  http://www.utrc2.org/sites/default/files/Final-Report-Disaster-Relief-Routing.pdf
• 
• Record URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/36876
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This document was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
• Corporate Authors:

  State University of New York, Binghamton

  Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering
  Binghamton, NY  United States 

  University Transportation Research Center

  City College of New York
  Marshak Hall, Suite 910, 160 Convent Avenue
  New York, NY  United States  10031

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Chung, Sung Hoon
  • Li, Yinglei
• Publication Date: 2017-5

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 44p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Algorithms; Costs; Disaster relief; Optimization; Routing; Travel demand; Travel time; Uncertainty
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Security and Emergencies;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01641068
• Record Type: Publication
• Contract Numbers: 49198-14-27
• Files: UTC, NTL, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Jun 29 2017 2:27PM