Location and routing models for emergency response plans with priorities

Abstract

In emergency planning, consideration of emergency priorities is a necessity. This paper presents new formulations of the facility location problem (FLP) and vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) with considerations of priority. Our models ensure that higher priority locations are considered before the lower priority ones, for both facility and routing decisions. The FLP is solved using an MIP solver, while a tabu search based metaheuristic is developed for the solution of the VRPTW. Under a set of possible emergency scenarios with limited emergency resources, our models were able to serve higher priority locations better than the much utilized Maximal Coverage Location Problem (MCLP) model. We also present preliminary work and results for an integrated location-routing analysis which improves service results further. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.