A two-stage approach for medical supplies intermodal transportation in large-scale disaster responses

Abstract

We present a two-stage approach for the “helicopters and vehicles” intermodal transportation of medical supplies in large-scale disaster responses. In the first stage, a fuzzy-based method and its heuristic algorithm are developed to select the locations of temporary distribution centers (TDCs) and assign medial aid points (MAPs) to each TDC. In the second stage, an integer-programming model is developed to determine the delivery routes. Numerical experiments verified the effectiveness of the approach, and observed several findings: (i) More TDCs often increase the efficiency and utility of medical supplies; (ii) It is not definitely true that vehicles should load more and more medical supplies in emergency responses; (iii) The more contrasting the traveling speeds of helicopters and vehicles are, the more advantageous the intermodal transportation is.