A supporting station model for reliable infrastructure location design under interdependent disruptions

This paper proposes a new modeling method that equivalently transforms interdependent and correlated facility failures in an infrastructure system into only i.i.d. disruptions in a supporting structure. The properties of this structure are examined and a mathematical model is created to solve reliable facility location design problems under correlated facility failure risks. This model is formulated into a compact integer linear program and can be efficiently solved by state-of-the-art solvers. A set of experiments and case studies are conducted to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model and to draw managerial insights into the optimal system design. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.