A Conceptual Road Network Emergency Model to Aid Emergency Preparedness and Response Decision-Making in the Context of Humanitarian Logistics

This paper presents a discussion on the application of different techniques (e.g. network reliability and logistics concepts) for emergency management. Special attention is given to decision-making support in the context of roading networks before, during and after stress emergency situations. It is understood that the complexity of emergencies can quickly overwhelm organizations and personnel and ultimately lead to poor decision-making and loss of life and wealth. In this respect, a method is proposed to both support network analysis and resource allocation to fix road networks prone to disasters. A Road Network Emergency Management model has been designed to assist technically-sound preparations and decision-making during emergencies. Case study results indicate that the chosen techniques and the proposed model can help organizations to better manage emergencies; however, they do not satisfy all the resource, personnel and governmental managerial needs identified for dealing with real emergencies. In this context, a new field of study, namely Humanitarian Logistics, is proposed in an effort to fill the conceptual gaps observed in many previous studies of Emergency Management.