A knowledge based vehicle scheduler for emergency relief management

The need to schedule vehicle deliveries of relief items to distribution centres occurs in almost every relief operation (for example, food emergencies in developing countries). This task is usually complicated by a mix of different vehicle types, with different capacities and road worthiness. There will usually be a wide range of commodities, of different bulk. A few loads may be made up of two or more different types of commodities. Some loads will be life-critical; others will be of lower immediate priority. Early on in a major refugee or food emergency, even small increases in the efficiency of scheduling of critical items can result in substantial life-saving. Often, few experience staff are available to make the decisions when the emergency first arises, and most decision support systems for scheduling are not suitable for emergencies. The paper concerns the development of an expert system for the purpose