A Two-Stage Approach for Medical Supplies Intermodal Transportation in Large-Scale Disaster Responses

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Junhu Ruan²  Xuping Wang²  Yan Shi¹ 

[1] General Education Center, Tokai University, Kumamoto 862-8652, Japan; E-Mail:;Institute of Systems Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China

关键词: large-scale disasters;    medical supplies;    intermodal transportation;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijerph111111081

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

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.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.