An integrative framework for coordination of damage assessment, road restoration, and relief distribution in disasters

The goal of the paper is to study two fundamental barriers of efficiency in road network restorations, namely, the lack of complete damage/debris information and the lack of coordination among the restoration operations. We develop an integrative decision-support framework with a model-based data diffusion component for online coordination of three restoration-interdependent operations in the disaster response phase: “damage assessment”, “road recovery” and “relief distribution”. The model developed for the damage assessment operation controls the damage/debris data diffusion speed in the integrative framework. This data is instantly shared with an online model developed to prioritize the recovery process for blocked roads. Road prioritization is done in a way to make the highest acceleration in the relief distribution operation. The integrative framework is tested on the road network of the Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Analyzing the interactions between the operations shows that the scarcity of the recovery resources (in the second operation) neutralizes the impact of fast data diffusion (in the first operation). Also, the scarcity of recovery resources amplifies the importance of integration between road recovery and relief distribution operations. However, the benefit of this integration (between the second and third operations) is reduced by slow data diffusion (in the first operation). The performance of the proposed approach is compared with an online heuristic benchmark mimicking the performance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).