A Two Stage Vehicle Routing Algorithm Applied to Disaster Relief Logistics after the 2015 Nepal Earthquake

TL;DR

This paper presents a two-stage vehicle routing algorithm tailored for disaster relief logistics, demonstrating its application to Nepal earthquake aid distribution and highlighting the importance of heuristics in complex routing problems.

Contribution

It adapts Fisher and Jaikumar's two-stage method to disaster relief logistics, combining integer programming with heuristics for efficient vehicle routing.

Findings

Heuristics are essential for solving complex routing problems.

The two-stage approach effectively allocates and routes vehicles in disaster scenarios.

The method improves response efficiency in post-disaster logistics.

Abstract

After the April 2015 Nepal Earthquake, the Himalayan Disaster Relief Volunteer Group distributed supplies to affected areas. We model HDRVG's operations as a vehicle routing problem using Fisher and Jaikumar's two stage method, which allocates locations to vehicles via an integer program and then uses heuristics to route the vehicles. In the allocation stage, we use the assignment problem formulation to assign locations to vehicles. In the routing stage, we implement multiple heuristics for the sake of comparison. Our results illustrate the open nature of the vehicle routing problem and the computational necessity of heuristics.