Fire truck relocation during major incidents

The effectiveness of a fire department is largely determined by its ability to respond to incidents in a timely manner. To do so, fire departments typically have fire stations spread evenly across the region, and dispatch the closest truck(s) whenever a new incident occurs. However, large gaps in coverage may arise in the case of a major incident that requires many nearby fire trucks over a long period of time, substantially increasing response times for emergencies that occur subsequently. We propose a heuristic for relocating idle trucks during a major incident in order to retain good coverage. This is done by solving a mathematical program that takes into account the location of the available fire trucks and the historic spatial distribution of incidents. This heuristic allows the user to balance the coverage and the number of truck movements. Using extensive simulation experiments we test the heuristic for the operations of the Fire Department of Amsterdam‐Amstelland, and compare it against three other benchmark strategies in a simulation fitted using 10 years of historical data. We demonstrate substantial improvement over the current relocation policy, and show that not relocating during major incidents may lead to a significant decrease in performance

Optimisation of stochastic networks with blocking: a functional-form approach

This paper introduces a class of stochastic networks with blocking, motivated by applications arising in cellular network planning, mobile cloud computing, and spare parts supply chains. Blocking results in lost revenue due to customers or jobs being permanently removed from the system. We are interested in striking a balance between mitigating blocking by increasing service capacity, and maintaining low costs for service capacity. This problem is further complicated by the stochastic nature of the system. Owing to the complexity of the system there are no analytical results available that formulate and solve the relevant optimization problem in closed form. Traditional simulation-based methods may work well for small instances, but the associated computational costs are prohibitive for networks of realistic size. We propose a hybrid functional-form based approach for finding the optimal resource allocation, combining the speed of an analytical approach with the accuracy of simulation-based optimisation. The key insight is to replace the computationally expensive gradient estimation in simulation optimisation with a closed-form analytical approximation that is calibrated using a single simulation run. We develop two implementations of this approach and conduct extensive computational experiments on complex examples to show that it is capable of substantially improving system performance. We also provide evidence that our approach has substantially lower computational costs compared to stochastic approximation

Istraživanje i opravdanje vremena izvođenja operativnih akcija vatrogasno-spasilačkih postrojbi za spašavanje ljudi u požaru

The paper conducts research to determine and justify the total time of rescuing people in a fire in case of threat to their lives. It is established that the total time of rescuing people in a fire consists of the time before the report of the fire, the time of collection and departure of the unit, the time of departure and the time of operational deployment. Which in turn are determined depending on such indicators as the number of fire and rescue units and their location, their tactical capabilities and equipment of fire and rescue vehicles and fire equipment, population density, road coverage, terrain and operational and tactical characteristics of the area departure of the unit. Graphically shows the components of the total time of rescuing people in a fire, depending on these indicators. Also, a comparative analysis of the total time of rescuing people in a fire, taking into account the scheme number, period and place of use of the fire and rescue unit with the safe time of people in the room before the fatal concentration of carbon monoxide. The obtained results allow researchers to determine the total time of rescuing people in a fire with the appropriate adjustment of its components and the introduction of their relevant documentation. The paper also substantiates the choice of the scheme of operational deployment of the fire and rescue unit upon arrival at the scene of the fire.U radu se prikazuje istraživanje kako bi se utvrdilo i opravdalo ukupno vrijeme spašavanja ljudi u požaru u slučaju prijetnje njihovim životima. Utvrđuje se da se ukupno vrijeme spašavanja ljudi u požaru sastoji od vremena prije dojave o požaru, vremena prikupljanja i odlaska postrojbe, vremena polaska i vremena operativnog raspoređivanja. Navedena se, pak, određuju ovisno o pokazateljima kao što su broj vatrogasno-spasilačkih jedinica i njihov položaj, njihove taktičke sposobnosti i opremljenost vatrogasno-spasilačkih vozila i vatrogasne opreme, gustoća naseljenosti, pokrivenost cesta, terena i operativno-taktičke karakteristike područja odlaska jedinice. Grafički se prikazuju komponente ukupnog vremena spašavanja ljudi u požaru, ovisno o ovim pokazateljima, također, i usporedna analiza ukupnog vremena spašavanja ljudi u požaru, uzimajući u obzir broj sheme, razdoblje i mjesto korištenja vatrogasno-spasilačke jedinice sa sigurnim vremenom ljudi u sobi prije kobne koncentracije ugljičnog monoksida. Dobiveni rezultati omogućuju istraživačima da utvrde ukupno vrijeme spašavanja ljudi u požaru uz odgovarajuće podešavanje njegovih komponenata i uvođenjem njihove relevantne dokumentacije. U radu se također obrazlaže izbor sheme operativnog raspoređivanja vatrogasno-spasilačke jedinice po dolasku na mjesto požara

“Make no little plans”: Impactful research to solve the next generation of transportation problems

The transportation science research community has contributed to numerous practical and intellectual innovations and improvements over the last decades. Technological advancements have broadened and amplified the potential impacts of our field. At the same time, the world and its communities are facing greater and more serious challenges than ever before. In this paper, we call upon the transportation science research community to work on a research agenda that addresses some of the most important of these challenges. This agenda is guided by the sustainable development goals outlined by the United Nations and organized into three areas: (1) well-being, (2) infrastructure, and, (3) natural environment. For each area, we identify current and future challenges as well as research directions to address those challenges

Increasing the responsiveness of firefighter services by relocating base stations in Amsterdam

In life-threatening situations where every second counts, the timely presence of firefighter services can make the difference between survival and death. Motivated by this, in collaboration with Fire Department Amsterdam-Amstelland in the Netherlands, we developed a mathematical programming model for determining the optimal locations of the vehicle base stations, and for optimally distributing firefighter vehicle types over the base stations. The model is driven by practical considerations. It (1) allows for fixing any subset of existing base locations that cannot be relocated (e.g., for historical reasons); (2) includes multiple vehicle types, each of which may have a type-dependent response-time target; and (3) includes crews that consist of arbitrary mixtures of professional (i.e., career) and volunteer firefighters. Extensive analysis of a large data set obtained from the Fire Department Amsterdam-Amstelland demonstrates: (1) that a reduction of over 50 percent in the fraction of firefighter late arrivals can be realized by relocating only three of the current 19 base locations; and (2) that adding new base locations to improve performance is unnecessary: optimization of the locations of the current base stations is as effective, and saves money. The results show an enormous potential for substantially reducing the fraction of late arrivals of firefighter services, with little investment in relocating a small number of stations

Increasing the responsiveness of firefighter services by relocating base stations in Amsterdam

In life-threatening situations where every second counts, the timely presence of firefighter services can make the difference between survival and death. Motivated by this, in collaboration with Fire Department Amsterdam-Amstelland in the Netherlands, we developed a mathematical programming model for determining the optimal locations of the vehicle base stations, and for optimally distributing firefighter vehicle types over the base stations. The model is driven by practical considerations. It (1) allows for fixing any subset of existing base locations that cannot be relocated (e.g., for historical reasons); (2) includes multiple vehicle types, each of which may have a type-dependent response-time target; and (3) includes crews that consist of arbitrary mixtures of professional (i.e., career) and volunteer firefighters. Extensive analysis of a large data set obtained from the Fire Department Amsterdam-Amstelland demonstrates: (1) that a reduction of over 50 percent in the fraction of firefighter late arrivals can be realized by relocating only three of the current 19 base locations; and (2) that adding new base locations to improve performance is unnecessary: optimization of the locations of the current base stations is as effective, and saves money. The results show an enormous potential for substantially reducing the fraction of late arrivals of firefighter services, with little investment in relocating a small number of stations