A Tabu Search heuristic for the Robust Wounded Transfer Problem in large-scale emergencies

In this paper, we are interested in the Robust Wounded Transfer Problem (RWTP) in the background of large-scale emergencies such as typhoons, floods, earthquakes, droughts and so on. We introduce the theory of robust discrete optimization, and formulate the problem as a multi-point transportation model with multi-type vehicles, based on an absolute robustness criterion to minimize the maximum total rescue time over all scenarios. Considering the complexity of this problem in real-world applications, we also design a Tabu Search heuristic (TS) for solving it quickly and effectively. Lastly, we provide a computational experiment to illustrate the effectiveness of our approach in the decision making of rescue activities in large-scale emergencies.