Optimization of a Temporary Debris Management Site on a Two-Way Roadway

Abstract

Temporary debris management sites (TDMSs) play an important role in buffering the excess of disaster-generated debris. Due to the environmental concerns of TDMSs, there are various environmental and legal restrictions to select suitable locations for TDMSs, which often significantly limits the options to open TDMSs in a post-disaster situation. For instance, TDMSs should not be in residential zones and should keep distance from environmentally sensitive areas, limiting available areas for TDMSs to accommodate debris. As such, in the case of a major disaster event, such as a hurricane, a low-traffic roadway is often selected as a TDMS to temporarily store the enormous amount of debris. Meanwhile, the timely and efficient operation of TDMSs is key to speedy community recovery. The prior TDMS-related productivity studies primarily focus on the operation of one TDMS that is generally opened in a vacant area, which has flexibility for layout and operation planning. However, those studies do not apply to guide the operation of TDMSs with different site layouts (e.g., the layout of a TDMS on a two-way roadway). Considering site layout restrictions, this study proposes a simulation-based optimization framework to develop optimal operation strategies for a TDMS on a two-way roadway. The developed framework simulates the storing, sorting, and processing operations in a TDMS with its unique layout. The TDMS layout is obtained from real-world TDMS in North Port, Florida, which was recently impacted by Hurricane Ian. The TDMS layout comprises a narrow rectangle-shaped area in the center of a two-way roadway. The framework evaluates post-disaster debris management operations and provides real-time optimal resource allocation solutions to minimize TDMS operation costs. The results indicate that the proposed framework can significantly increase the efficiency of TDMS operations by reducing the operation cost by 60% and the truck waiting time inside the TDMS by 57%.