A two-tier solution for disaster relief management

Disaster relief management is essential for various types of disasters such as terrorist attacks, hazardous materials, hurricanes and flash floods. Planning for disaster relief is important in rescuing victims with the involvement of many agencies and the public in managing the event. This is due to poor coordination, late assistance and uneven distribution of vehicles, food, and medical assistants. Time and cost are very important in disaster relief. The need for a proper disaster relief plan to overcome these issues is crucial. This paper presents a two tier solutions to relieve flood victims focuses on the evacuation. The first tier is to complete the task of vehicles assignment at the inundated area. Then, the routing of vehicles from inundated areas to relief centres. A discrete particle swarm optimization were employed and tested reflecting the fitness functions identified from each tier. The findings show that the two- tier solution provides good results for the evacuation plan.