Two-Stage Covering Location Model for Air–Ground Medical Rescue System

Ming Zhang, Yu Zhang, Zhifeng Qiu and Hanlin Wu
Additional contact information
Ming Zhang: College of Civil Aviation, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
Yu Zhang: Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA
Zhifeng Qiu: College of Civil Aviation, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
Hanlin Wu: College of Civil Aviation, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 12, 1-21

Abstract: This study tackled the multimodal facility location problem in emergency medical rescue. First, an intermodal setting was suggested, i.e., considering cooperation between ground ambulances and helicopters in emergency medical rescues. Specifically, four scheduling modes were structured: air only, ground only, air-ground combined mode if landing and take-off site for helicopters near the wounded is available, and air-ground transshipment if the landing and take-off site for helicopters near the wounded is not available. Second, a two-stage covering location model was proposed. In the first stage, a set-covering model was developed to achieve maximum coverage and minimal total construction cost of emergency rescue facilities. The optimal mixed allocation proportion of helicopters and ground ambulances was then obtained to guarantee cohesion between the hierarchical models and covering characteristics and the economic efficiency of location results. In the second stage, for given emergency locations, an emergency scheduling mode matrix was constructed for meeting response time and total rescue time constraints. The proposed model obtains optimal results in terms of coverage, construction cost, and rescue time. A case study of Beijing, China validated the feasibility and efficiency of the two-stage covering location model for multimodal emergency medical rescue network. The proposed air-ground rescue system and two-stage covering location model can be extended and also used for large-scale disaster rescue management.

Keywords: humanitarian logistics; medical rescue; air-ground collaborative transport; hierarchical covering location model; emergency scheduling mode matrix (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/12/3242/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/12/3242/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:12:p:3242-:d:239186

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().