Optimal Sequencing Policies for Recovery of Physical Infrastructure After Disasters

In this paper, we consider a disaster scenario where multiple physical infrastructure components suffer damage. After the disaster, the health of these components continue to deteriorate over time, unless they are being repaired. Given this setting, we consider the problem of finding the optimal sequence to repair the different infrastructure components in order to maximize the number of components that are eventually returned to full health. We show that the optimal sequence depends on the relationship between the rate of improvement (when being repaired) and the rate of deterioration (when not being repaired). We explicitly characterize the optimal repair policy as a function of the health states of the different components under certain conditions on the rates of improvement and deterioration.