Application of Vehicle Routing Heuristic to an Aeromedical Airlift Problem

The purpose of this thesis was to construct a network of optimal routes for an aeromedical evacuation system, limited to thirty MD-80 aircraft. The research had three objectives: 1) to allocate thirty aircraft among the hub airports, 2) to construct optimal routes to and from each hub, and 3) to identify any hospital bed shortages. Analysts at the Military Airlift Command requested the research as part of an effort to formulate a wartime, ninety-day operations plan. The research accomplished the objectives by use of a modified Clarke-Wright heuristic combined with a split delivery heuristic. Flight routes were proven to be sensitive to minor changes in daily patient loads and would be unsuitable for an operations plan. The research also determined that thirty aircraft are sufficient to operate the entire airlift system, however, the system has large shortages of orthopedic, surgical and burn injury beds. The heuristic's results were compared to those from a probabilistic approach adopted by Carter. In general, the total flight times obtained from both research efforts agree. Further study regarding aircraft basing and scheduling aspects of this problem is suggested. Keywords: Computations; MD-80 Aircraft; Daily scheduling decision aids.