Optimizing Emergency Logistics Centre Locations: A Multi-Objective Robust Model

This article is concerned with emergency material relief in response to major emergencies, concentrating on the difficulties in locating emergency logistics facilities and deploying emergency supplies. Using discrete scenarios, we describe the uncertainty of the demand for emergency supplies at the catastrophe site and the uncertainty of the cost and timing of the shipment of such supplies. Meanwhile, we consider two key objectives, i.e. emergency relief cost and time, and build a multi-objective emergency logistics centre siting model, including deterministic and robust optimization models. In the construction of the siting model, due to the time urgency of emergency logistics, we adopt a bi-objective function, including transportation and transportation time, and consider the construction and inventory costs of the emergency logistics centre. We also introduced a generalized hybrid frog-hopping algorithm to encode facilities that provide emergency material relief services. To verify the effectiveness of the models and algorithms, we designed a multi-scenario simulation experiment, and the results show that the two models and algorithms we propose have good feasibility and effectiveness. The robust optimization model performs well in handling various uncertainties.