Establishing an emergency relief chain in acrisis with the approach of multiple transferpoints and facilities locationcase study: south-central regions of Tehran

Relief of injuries is one of the most important stages of crisis management that should be planned for it before theincident. Timely and productivity relief will significantly reduce the financial and human losses. Considering thisnecessity, in this paper, proposed a mixed-integer mathematical model of multiple transfer points and facilities locationfor the formation of a relief chain during the earthquake crisis, which facilities includes hospitals, rescue centers,warehouses and shelters. Screening the injuries according to the triage system and providing outpatient health care atthe transfer points, transfer the yellow injuries to the relief centers, dual transfer of the red injuries to the hospital, payingattention to the type of goods needed at any point, and finally, adding budget constraint to set up facilities are the paper’sassumptions that developed the transfer points and facilities location model. To evaluate the model in real term a casestudy was conducted in south-central regions of Tehran. Model was once solved with specified number of facilities, andagain with consideration of budget constraint, in the second condition, better and more practical results were obtained. Asthe budget increases, the number of transfer points increases that indicating the importance of them in reducing the relieftime. Therefore, the establishment of transfer points is an effective strategy in the efficiency of the relief process duringa crisis. Attention to the distribution of hospitals in the city for the construction of new hospitals, the establishment of airrescue infrastructure in hospitals, identification of resistant buildings to change their use in crisis as a backup facility, andtraining the process of relief to citizens, are important solutions in the proper functioning of the relief chain