A simple binary search algorithm for short notice evacuation scheduling and routing

Hurricanes are one of the costliest and most destructive eve nts in the United States. Hundreds of people were either died or stranded in the impacted areas due to hurricanes rece nt years. Therefore, proper preparations can substantiall y reduce damages incurred by hurricanes. Evacuation is one of the crucial components in disaster preparation. It is essential to determine the precise routes and schedules in e vacuation process. Executing the evacuation process too early may result in major economic losses in the evacuated areas and hamper delivery of critical supplies to the region under threat. Executing the evacuation process too late may result in tremendous traffic congestion and may subject many people to critical risks. In this paper, we present the m athematical models and a heuristic algorithm that can efficiently determine the starting times, schedules, and re commended routes of the evacuation process based on the estimated hurricane path and time of landfall information. The proposed methodologies have been applied to a number of evacuation problems. Our results show the effectiveness of the solutions generated by the proposed methods.