A comparison of scenario-based hybrid bilevel and multi-objective location-allocation models for earthquake emergency shelters: a case study in the central area of Beijing, China

The accurate location and allocation of disaster emergency shelters are key components of effective urban planning and emergency management. Various models have been developed to solve the location-allocation problem, but gaps remain with regard to model realism and associated applicability. For the available location and allocation models of earthquake emergency shelters, uncertainty with respect to earthquake hazard, population exposure, rate of damage to buildings and the effects of evacuee behavior are often neglected or oversimplified. Moreover, modifying the models can be an alternative means of improving the solution quality when the optimization algorithm has difficulty coping with a complex, high-dimensional problem. This article develops a scenario-based hybrid bilevel model that addresses the concerns related to high-dimensional complexity and provides a higher degree of realism by incorporating the uncertainties of population dynamics and earthquake damage scenarios into location-allocation problems for earthquake emergency shelters. A modified particle swarm optimization algorithm combined with a simulated annealing algorithm was applied to derive solutions using the hybrid bilevel model and a conventional multi-objective model, and the solutions obtained using the two models were then compared. The novel features of the study include the hybrid bilevel model that considers the dynamic number of evacuees and its implementation for earthquake emergency shelter location and allocation. The results show that the solutions significantly differ between daytime and nighttime. When applied to the multi-objective model, the optimization algorithm is time consuming and may only find the local optima and provide suboptimal solutions in the considered scenarios with more evacuees. By contrast, the hybrid bilevel model shows more desirable performance because it significantly reduces the dimensionality of the location-allocation problem based on a two-step-to-reach approach. The proposed hybrid bilevel model is proven to be useful for optimal shelter allocation, and the presented results can be used as a reference for balancing the interests of the government and residents during the planning of shelters in Beijing.