Multiobjective optimization on hierarchical refugee evacuation and resource allocation for disaster management (Q2007155)

Summary: This paper studies a location-allocation problem to determine the selection of emergency shelters, medical centers, and distribution centers after the disaster. The evacuation of refugees and allocation of relief resources are also considered. A mixed-integer nonlinear multiobjective programming model is proposed to characterize the problem. The hierarchical demand of different refugees and the limitations of relief resources are considered in the model. We employ a combination of the simulated annealing (SA) algorithm and the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm method to solve the complex model. To optimize the result of our proposed algorithm, we absorb the group search, crossover, and mutation operator of GA into SA. We conduct a case study in a district of Beijing in China to validate the proposed methodology. Some computational experiments are conducted to analyze the impact of different factors, such as the target weight setting, selection of candidate shelters, and quantity of relief resources.