Equitable resource allocation problem with multiple depots in emergency management

This paper considers the equitable resource allocation problem with multiple depots. In large-scale emergencies, the amount of requirement in each affected area is very huge, such as medical supplies, while these is limited resource in hand. Then the decision makers need to decide how to allocate this limited resource. In this paper, we consider equity between nodes. That is to minimize the maximum unsatisfied rate among all demand nodes. First, we will prove this model can be solved in polynomial time. Then an LP-relaxation algorithm based on LP-rounding technique is presented. At last, computational results show that this algorithm can be very useful for emergency responder to best use the available supplies in case of emergencies.