Question

Please Summarize the following passage in at least 225 words.

This paper describes an integrated location-distribution model for coordinating logistics support and evacuation operations in disaster response activities. Logistics planning in emergencies involves dispatching commodities (e.g., medical materials and personnel, specialised rescue equipment and rescue teams, food, etc.) to distribution centres in affected areas and evacuation and transfer of wounded people to emergency units. During the initial response time it is also necessary to set up temporary emergency centers and shelters in affected areas to speed up medical care for less heavily wounded survivors. In risk mitigation studies for natural disasters, possible sites where these units can be situated are specified according to risk based urban structural analysis. Logistics coordination in disasters involves the selection of sites that result in maximum coverage of medical need in affected areas. Another important issue that arises in such emergencies is that medical personnel who are on duty in nearby hospitals have to be re-shuffled to serve both temporary and permanent emergency units. Thus, an optimal medical personnel allocation must be determined among these units. The proposed model also considers this issue.

The proposed model is a mixed integer multi-commodity network flow model that treats vehicles as integer commodity flows rather than binary variables. This results in a more compact formulation whose output is processed to extract a detailed vehicle route and load instruction sheet. Post processing is achieved by a simple routing algorithm that is pseudo-polynomial in the number of vehicles utilized, followed by the solution of a linear system of equations defined in a very restricted domain. The behavior and solvability of the model is illustrated on an earthquake scenario based on Istanbul’s risk grid as well as larger size hypothetical disaster scenarios.

Answer 1

The main purpose of logistics planning in emergency is to dispatch medical related commodities and other necessary items such as, medical materials and personnel, rescue equipments and rescue teams, food, etc. to distribution centres as quick as possible so that rescue operations are accelerated. In order to speed up treatment for wounded people temporary emergency centers and shelter places are already set up according to the risk level of the area. Logistics planning is highly essential for those areas where the possibility of natural disaster is very strong. Another requirement arises, i.e., medical personnel who can give better treatment to disaster affected people. To mitigate the suffering of people medical personnel are shifted from the nearby hospitals temporarily and again back to their permanent posting area. All the medical personnel have to serve both the temporary and permanent emergency units, so according to their requirement their schedule need to be fixed. The plan also includes delivery schedules for vehicles as well as the maximum loads picked up and delivered on these paths. In emergency logistics context, the vehicles do not return to depots, they have to wait at their last stop to receive order from logistics coordination point. The model is based on a mathematical solution, where it is separated into two parts, the first one is linear (for conventional commodities) and the second one is integer(for vehicle flows). The behaviour and operation of this model is illustrated on an earthquake scenario of realistic size as well as larger size hypothetical disaster scenarios.