Location — allocation models are designed to seek the
concurrent location of a set of service facilities and an
allocation scheme to satisfy the demands of a set of customers
or users of a given system. If the location—allocation model
is based on a graph-theoretic formulation, then the demand-fulfilling
items will move from a designated origin or
origins, through arcs and transshipment nodes, to a set of destinations selected by the model. It is suggested in this
research effort that such a modeling structure may be employed
to simulate transportation evacuation conditions that may
arise in the case of a natural disaster, namely a hurricane.
A nonlinear mixed integer mathematical program is formulated
to route passengers in automobiles on paths in the transportation network, such that the endangered area is evacuated in the minimum amount of time. One heuristic and
two exact, convergent, implicit enumeration algorithms based
on the generalized Benders' decomposition method are
presented. The algorithms are designed to exploit the inherent problem structure. Computational experience is
provided against a set of realistic test problems formulated
on the Virginia Beach network. Potential avenues for further
research are also explored.
next to an author's name indicates that all files or directories associated with their ETD are accessible from the Virginia Tech campus network only.
![[VT]](http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/images/ETD-db/restricted.gif)
