Response and recovery after severe wind storms using hierarchical open vehicle routing Online publication date: Wed, 20-May-2015
by Michael A. Walliser; Walter D. Potter; Pete Bettinger
International Journal of Emergency Management (IJEM), Vol. 11, No. 1, 2015
Abstract: This research represents a novel application of operations research methodology to a form of a hierarchical open vehicle routing problem. In our case study, a road network was divided into priority sets such that each set needed to be completely addressed before work could begin on the next. Rule-based heuristics and adaptations of local beam search heuristics were tested in various combinations, viable solutions were developed, and results were evaluated based on the time required to clear the entire road network of storm-generated debris. The results were also compared against a theoretical lower bound on the time required to clear all roads. The best routes were generated using a combination of constant time beam search and a rule-based heuristic, 12.4% greater than the lower bound, yet understandable for the case study area that contained numerous dead-ends and disconnected road priority sets.
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