Planning Postdisaster Operations in a Highway Network: Network Design Model with Interdependencies

Vital lifelines in the event of a disaster, transportation networks support evacuation activities, emergency logistics, and the restoration of daily activities. The rapid recovery of surviving transportation network operations immediately after a disaster is critical for the well-being of communities. The focus here is on planning highway operations in the recovery period after a disaster. A bilevel network design model with choice inter-dependencies was developed for choosing the strategies necessary to maximize the performance of a surviving highway network. A genetic algorithm was coupled with a traffic assignment procedure to solve the associated problem. Results on a real-size network in Greece under two disaster scenarios indicate both adequate computational performance and significant improvement in network performance indicators.