An optimization model for evacuating people with disability in extreme disaster conditions: A case study

Document Type : Article

Authors

1 Department of Industrial Engineering, Karaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Karaj, Iran

2 Centre for Disability Research and Policy, University of Sydney, Australia

3 School of Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The increasing severity and frequency of disasters have posed major challenges for people. Amongst, the risks of fatalities and injuries of people with disabilities (PWDs) have significantly increased. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) initiated a movement to create a "disability-accessible and inclusive environment" which highlighted the problems PWDs faced during disasters. One of the most important issues is providing evacuation and accommodation according to the special needs of PWDs. In this study, a MILP model is proposed to pick up PWDs from different locations and transfer them to shelters. Throughout this research, diverse disabilities, heterogonous vehicles, compatibility types of disabilities and vehicles, multi-depot and adept and amateur operators were considered to help evacuate PWDs. Additionally, 27 problems are solved to examine the efficacy of (μ+1) EA algorithm in large scale problems. Subsequently, a real case study with 500 nodes including pick up, shelters, and depot nodes are analyzed. The computational results illustrate that by adding small-sized (car) and medium-sized (Van) vehicles to the current fleet, the time for tours traveled significantly reduces. Finally, a sensitivity analysis has been conducted to prepare some managerial implications for crisis managers during the occurrence of disasters to help PWDs during evacuation.

Keywords


References:
1. Christie, N., Griffin, L., Chan, N., et al. "Private needs, public responses: vulnerable people's  flooddisrupted mobility", Disaster Prevention and Management, 25(2), pp. 244-260 (2016).
2. Marsh, T.J. and Hannaford, J. "The summer 2007 floods in England and Wales - A hydrological appraisal", Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (2008).
3. Pitt, M. "The Pitt review: Lessons from the 2007 floods", The Cabinet Office, London (2008).
4. Jinwoo, L., Zheng, Z., Kashfi, S., et al. "Observation of bus ridership in the aftermath of the 2011 floods in Southeast Queensland, Australia", In: Proceedings of the 9th Annual International Conference of the International Institute for Infrastructure Renewal and Reconstruction, Brisbane, Australia, (8-10 July 2013).
5. Wolshon, B. "Planning for the evacuation of New Orleans", Institute of Transportation Engineers, 72(2), pp. 44-49 (2002).
6. Walker, G. and Burningham, K. "Flood risk, vulnerability and environmental justice: Evidence and evaluation of inequality in a UK context", Critical Social Policy, 31(2), pp. 216-240 (2011).
7. Thywissen, K., Components of Risk: A Comparative Glossary, United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security, Source/2, Publication of UNU-EHS (2006).
8. Alexander, D., Gaillard, J.C., and Wisner, B. "Disability and disaster", In: B. Wisner, J.C. Gaillard and I. Kelman, Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction, pp. 413-423 (2012).
9. Hans, A., Patel, A.M., Sharma, R.K., et al. "Mainstreaming disability in disaster management: A tool kit", New Delhi: United Nations Development Program (2008).
10. https://www.ifrc.org/PageFiles/99876/WDR2007-English.pdf IFRC (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies), World disaster report: Focus on discrimination. Geneva: IFRC (2007).
11. Strough, L.M. and Kang, D. "The Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction and persons with disabilities", International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 6, pp. 140-149 (2015).
12. Apte, A., Heath S., Pico, A., et al. "Evacuating people with mobility-challenges in a short-notice disaster", Decision Sciences Institute, 46(4), pp. 731-754 (2015).
13. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11420/.
14. Apte, A. and Heath, S. "Request and response processes for Department of Defense support during domestic disasters", Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 8(1), (2011).
15. Nieburg, P., Waldman, R.J., and Krumm, D.M. "Evacuated populations - Lessons from foreign refugee crises", The New England Journal of Medicine, 353(15), pp. 1547-1549 (2005).
16. Litman, T. "Lessons from Katrina and Rita: What major disasters can teach transportation planners", Journal of Transportation Engineering, 132(1), pp. 11-18 (2006).
17. Malpass, A., West, C., Quaill, J., et al. "Experiences of individuals with disabilities sheltering during natural disabilities: An integrative review", Australian Journal of Emergency Management, 34(2), pp. 60-65(2019).
18. Mace, S.E., Doyle, C.J, Askew, K., et al. "Planning considerations for persons with access and functional needs in a disaster-Part 1: Overview and legal", American Journal of Disaster Medicine, 13(2), pp. 69- 83 (2018).
19. www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity.
20. Wong, S., Broader, J., and Shaheen, S. "A checklist of immediate actions for addressing COVID-19 as part of evacuation planning". UC Office of the President: University of California Institute of Transportation Studies. http://dx.doi.org/10.7922/G25H7DJT Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6311c0jx(2020).
21. Detti, P., Papalini, F., and Lara, G.Z.M.D. "A multidepot dial-a-ride problem with heterogeneous vehicles and compatibility constraints in healthcare", Omega, 70, pp. 1-14 (2017).
22. Parragh, S.N., Doerner, K.F., and Hartl, R.F. "Variable neighborhood search for the dial-a-ride problem", Computers and Operations Research, 37(6), pp. 1129- 1138 (2010).
23. Melachrinoudis, E., Ilhan, A.B., and Min, H. "A dial-aride problem for client transportation in a health-care organization", Computers and Operations Research, 34(3), pp. 742-759 (2007).
24. Parragh, S.N., Cordeau, J.-F., Doerner, K.F., et al. "Models and algorithms for the heterogeneous dial-aride problem with driver-related constraints", Operations Research Spectrum, 34(3), pp. 593-633 (2012).
25. Lehuede, F., Masson, R., Parragh, S.N., et al. "A multi-criteria large neighbourhood search for the transportation of disabled people", Journal of the Operational Research Society, 65(7), pp. 983-1000 (2014).
26. Rais, A., Alvelos, F., and Carvalho, M.S. "New mixedinteger-programming model for the pick-up and delivery problem with transshipment", European Journal of Operational Research, 235(3), pp. 530-539 (2014).
27. Feng, L., Vodopivec, N., and Miller-Hooks, E. "Supporting mobility-impaired populations in emergency evacuations", Transportation Research Record, 2532(1), pp. 118-128 (2015).
28. Faria, A.D., Yamashita, M., Tozi, L.A., et al. "Diala- ride routing system: the study of mathematical approaches used in public transport of people with physical disabilities", Proceedings of the 12th World Conference on Transport Research (WCTR) Society, Lisbon, Portugal, pp. 11-15 (July 2010).
29. Melachrinoudis, E. and Min, H. "A tabu search heuristic for solving the multi-depot, multi-vehicle, double request dial-a-ride problem faced by a healthcare organisation", International Journal of Operational Research, 10(2), pp. 214-239 (2011).
30. Reinhardt, L.B., Clausen, T., and Pisinger, D. "Synchronized dial-a-ride transportation of disabled passengers at airports", European Journal of Operational Research, 225(1), pp. 106-117 (2013).
31. Parragh, S.N. "Introducing heterogeneous users and vehicles into models and algorithms for the dial-a-ride problem", Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 19(5), pp. 912-930 (2011).
32. Riedler, M. and Raidl, G. "Solving a selective dial-aride problem with logic-based Benders decomposition", Computers and Operations Research, 96, pp. 30-54 (2018).
33. Cordeau, J.-F. and Laporte, G. "A tabu search heuristic for the static multi-vehicle dial-a-ride problem", Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 37(6), pp. 579-594 (2003).
34. Parragh, S.N., Doerner, K.F., Hartl, R.F., et al. "A heuristic two-phase solution approach for the multiobjective dial-a-ride problem", Networks, 54(4), pp. 227-242 (2009).
35. Molenbruch, Y., Braekers, K., Caris, A., et al.  Multidirectional local search for a bi-objective dial-a-ride problem in patient transportation", Computers and Operations Research, 77, pp. 58-71 (2017).
36. Cheng, C.B. "A location based dial-a-ride service system for the elderly and the disabled in Taiwan", In: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Ubi-Media Computing, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 3-4 July 2011, pp. 140-145 (2011).
37. Tellez, O., Vercraene, S., Lehuede, F., et al. "Dial-aride problem for disabled people using vehicles with reconfigurable capacity", In: Proceedings of the 20th IFAC World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), Toulouse, France, 9-14 July 2017 (2017).
38. Ropke, S. and Pisinger, D. "An adaptive large neighborhood search heuristic for the pickup and delivery problem with time windows", Transportation Science, 40(4), pp. 455-472 (2006).
39. Kaisar, E.L., Hess, L., and Palomo, A.B.P. "An emergency evacuation planning model for special needs populations using public transit systems", Journal of Public Transportation, 15(2), pp. 45-69 (2012).
40. Dhamala, T.N. and Adhikari, I.M. "On evacuation planning optimization problems from transit-based perspective", International Journal of Operations Research, 15(1), pp. 29-47 (2018).
41. Murray-Tuite, P. and Wolshon, B. "Evacuation transportation modeling: an overview of research, development, and practice", Transportation Research Part C, 27, pp. 25-45 (2013).
42. Bian, R. and Wilmot, C.G. "An analysis on transit pick-up points for vulnerable people during hurricane evacuation: A case study of New Orleans", International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 31, pp. 1143-1151 (2018).
43. Bayram, V. "Optimization models for large scale network evacuation planning and management: A literature review", Surveys in Operations Research and Management Science, 21(2), pp. 63-84 (2016).
44. Amideo, A.E., Scaparra, M.P., and Kotiadis. K. "Optimising shelter location and evacuation routing operations: The critical issues", European Journal of Operational Research, 279, pp. 279-295 (2019).
45. Shahparvari, S. and Abbasi, B. "Robust stochastic vehicle routing and scheduling for bushfire emergency evacuation: An Australian case study", Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 104, pp. 32- 49 (2017).
46. Dulebenets, M.A., Pasha, J., Kavoosi, M., et al. "Multiobjective optimization model for emergency evacuation planning in geographical locations with vulnerable population groups", Journal of Management in Engineering, 36(2), pp. 1-17 (2020).
47. Baou, E., Koutras, V.P., Zeimpekis, V., et al. "Emergency evacuation planning in natural disasters under diverse population and  fleet characteristics", Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management, 8(4), pp. 447-476 (2018).
48. Flores, I., Ortu~no, M.T., and Tirado, G., et al. "Supported Evacuation for Disaster Relief through Lexicographic Goal Programming", Mathematics, 8(4), pp. 2-20 (2020).
49. Zhao, X., Xu, W., Ma, Y., et al. "Relationships between evacuation population size, earthquake emergency shelter capacity, and evacuation time", International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 8, pp. 457-470 (2017).
50. Bolia, N.B. "Operating strategies of buses for mass evacuation", Safety Science, 111, pp. 167-178 (2019).
51. Swamy, R., Kang, J.E., Batta, R., et al. "Hurricane evacuation planning using public transportation", Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 59, pp. 43-55 (2017).
52. Dulebenets, M.A., Pasha, J., Abioye, O.F., et al. "Exact and heuristic solution algorithms for efficient emergency evacuation in areas with vulnerable populations", International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 39, pp. 1-18 (2019).
53. Gao, X., Nayeem , M.K., and Hezam, I.M. "A robust two-stage transit-based evacuation model for large-scale disaster response", Measurement, 145, pp. 713-723 (2019). https://ourworldindata.org/naturaldisasters. 
54. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List of earthquakes in Iran.
Volume 30, Issue 4 - Serial Number 4
Transactions on Industrial Engineering (E)
July and August 2023
Pages 1498-1517
  • Receive Date: 30 December 2020
  • Revise Date: 09 March 2021
  • Accept Date: 02 May 2021