Emergency facility location problems in logistics : status and perspectives

Abstract

Emergencies that pose potential threats to our health, life, and properties can happen anywhere and anytime and may result in huge losses if they are not handled timely and effectively. An immediate response to emergencies is the key to mitigate these threats and losses. As the response time is largely dependent on the number and location of emergency facilities, the problem of how to determine the optimal number of emergency facilities and their best locations is of great strategic importance and of great interest to researchers. One of the most common approaches for researchers to address the emergency facility location problem is to model it as a discrete coverage-based emergency facility location problem. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of this problem, including mathematical models and their extensions and applications. In addition, the commonly used solution methods and some promising future research questions based on covering models are discussed.