a stochastic facility location problem in uav-supported humanitarian relief logistics with time windows and multimodal transportation

After disasters such as earthquakes, due to the failure of infrastructure or blockage of roads and bridges, some affected areas are inaccessible. therefore, traditional vehicles like trucks are not applicable at this situation. on the other hand, quick distribution of relief items (such as water, food, medical items, etc.) to the affected areas by humanitarian organizations can save human lives. unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, have the potential to significantly reduce the cost and time of making last-mile deliveries and responding to emergencies. on this paper we use drones in distribution of humanitarian aids which are not limited to infrastructure like roads and bridges by considering multimode transportation that lets decision makers to choose the best way of relief transportation to the affected areas. also, we propose time windows and drone’s battery constraint in our model. the proposed model minimizes transportation costs of relief items to the affected areas and considers a penalty cost for the relief items that have delivered after end of the time windows.