A logistics model for delivery of prioritized items: Application to a disaster relief effort†

In this paper, a new logistics model is proposed for delivery of prioritized items in disaster relief operations. It considers multi-items, multi-vehicles, multi-periods, soft time windows, and a split delivery strategy scenario, and is formulated as a multiobjective integer programming model. To effectively solve this model we need to limit the number of available tours. Two heuristic approaches are introduced for this purpose. The first approach is based on a genetic algorithm, while the second approach is developed by decomposing the original problem. We compare these two approaches via a computational study. The multi-objective problem is converted to a single-objective problem by the weighted sum method. A case study is presented to illustrate the potential applicability of our model. Also, presented is a comparison of our model with that proposed in a recent paper by Balcik et al.[5]. keywords: vehicle routing problem, logistics, prioritizing delivery, split delivery †This material is based upon work supported by the Federal Highway Administration under Cooperative Agreement No. DTFH61-07-H-00023, awarded to the Center for Transportation Injury Research, CUBRC, Inc., Buffalo, NY. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions are those of the Author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Federal Highway Administration ∗Corresponding author. Address: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University at Buffalo (SUNY), Buffalo, NY 14260, United States. Tel.: +1 716 6450972; fax: +1 716 6453302. E-mail address:[email protected] (R. Batta)