A path-generation matheuristic for large scale evacuation planning

Abstract

In this study we present a general matheuristic that decomposes the problem being solved in a master and a subproblem. In contrast with the column generation technique, the proposed approach does not rely on the explicit pricing of new columns but instead exploits features of the incumbent solution to generate one or more columns in the master problem. We apply this approach to large scale evacuation planning, leading to the first scalable algorithm that complies with emergency services practice. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.