Disaster relief vehicle routing with covering tour approach and fuzzy demands, solved by Hybrid Harmony Search Algorithm

One of the most important measures needed to be done in times of crisis is to optimize the allocation and distribution of resources among individuals. Time is a critical factor effective to increase the number of people rescued by the relief activities.In this paper, we present a relief vehicle routing model in the affected area which uses covering tour approach to reduce total response time. Also, it is too difficult to determine the real amount of demands for essential commodities, e.g. first-aids, drinking water, etc. Therefore, we consider a fuzzy chance constrained programming model based on the fuzzy credibility theory. In order to validate the model, several numerical examples are solved using branch and bound A metaheuristic algorithm based on harmony search algorithm incorporated with stochastic simulation is developed and proposed to solve the problem. The results of the proposed algorithm compared with the results of the exact method shows 1% error for the algorithm. This indicates the efficiency of the proposed algorithm. To evaluate the proposed algorithm on a large scale, the results of the algorithm, has been compared with the results of GRASP method.The experimental results have shown that the proposed algorithms have appropriate performance in a reasonable time.