A multi-objective emergency network design problem to carry out disaster relief operations in developing countries: A case study of Tehran, Iran

PurposeOne of the problems in post-earthquake disaster management in developing countries, such as Iran, is the prediction of the residual network available for disaster relief operations. Therefore, it is important to use methods that are executable in such countries given the limited amount of accurate data. The purpose of this paper is to present a multi-objective model that seeks to determine the set of roads of a transportation network that should preserve its role in carrying out disaster relief operations (i.e. known as “emergency road network” (ERN)) in the aftermath of earthquakes.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, the total travel time of emergency trips, the total length of network and the provision of coverage to the emergency demand/supply points have been incorporated as three important metrics of ERN into a multi-objective mixed integer linear programming model. The proposed model has been solved by adopting the e-constraint method.FindingsThe results of applying the model to Tehran’s highway network indicated that the least possible length for the emergency transportation network is about half the total length of its major roads (freeways and major arterials).Practical implicationsGathering detailed data about origin-destination pair of emergency trips and network characteristics have a direct effect on designing a suitable emergency network in pre-disaster phase.Originality/valueTo become solvable in a reasonable time, especially in large-scale cases, the problem has been modeled based on a decomposing technique. The model has been solved successfully for the emergency roads of Tehran within about 10 min of CPU time.