Strategic planning for disaster recovery with stochastic last mile distribution

Abstract

This paper considers the single commodity allocation problem (SCAP) for disaster recovery, a fundamental problem faced by all populated areas. SCAPs are complex stochastic optimization problems that combine resource allocation, warehouse routing, and parallel fleet routing. Moreover, these problems must be solved under tight runtime constraints to be practical in real-world disaster situations. This paper formalizes the specification of SCAPs and introduces a novel multi-stage hybrid-optimization algorithm that utilizes the strengths of mixed integer programming, constraint programming, and large neighborhood search. The algorithm was validated on hurricane disaster scenarios generated by Los Alamos National Laboratory using state-of-the-art disaster simulation tools and is deployed to aid federal organizations in the US. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.