Transportation Problems and Their Application in Planning Transport Provision of Area Evacuation

Abstract

Transportation problems are one of the specific problems of linear programming. These are optimization tasks and their purpose is to minimize the total cost of transporting commodity or people in complex logistics processes. The solution is to optimize the delivery system of the certain entity (e.g. commodity, persons or materials) from sources (suppliers) to destinations (customers) in order to minimize the total transport costs associated with distribution. In the case of area evacuation, transportation problems are used in planning the optimal transport of evacuees from boarding points to evacuation centers, while the calculations take into account in particular the transport distance and the total cost of transporting one person. The aim of the article is to demonstrate the possibilities and advantages of optimization procedures with a focus on transportation problems in planning and managing transport provision in the logistics process – evacuation of the area. The article contains a draft transport plan of inhabitants of the micro-region endangered by floods during their evacuation to designated evacuation centers. In determining the initial solution were applied three methods: The North West Corner Method, The Index Method and The Vogel’s Approximation Method. The best of them were described in the optimality test. Based on quantitative analysis of the problem, it was established of the optimal plan for the transport evacuees from the designated area.