Title: An optimisation model to design a maritime search and rescue system under uncertainty

Authors: Donya Rahmani; Seyed Babak Ebrahimi; Hadi Kian

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: Unfavourable weather conditions, disruptions in equipment, and human error are the factors that lead to maritime accidents. In such cases, delays in providing relief may lead to catastrophic events. Hence, this paper presents a bi-objective mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model for marine search and rescue under uncertainty. The purpose of the proposed model is to minimise total costs and the completion time of operations, simultaneously. Helicopters and ships equipped with rescue and relief equipment are applied for maximum coverage. We use a stochastic scenario-based approach to cope the uncertain response time. A fuzzy solution approach is developed to deal with the uncertainty and solve the proposed bi-objective model. Finally, an algorithm is presented to generate data using probabilistic distribution functions, and the performance of the proposed model is evaluated by eight simulated problems. The results obtained for the simulated problems and the sensitivity analysis of the coefficients of the objective functions show the effectiveness of the proposed model.

Keywords: maritime search and rescue; mathematical programming; location problem; fuzzy theory; stochastic programming.

DOI: 10.1504/IJADS.2024.135209

International Journal of Applied Decision Sciences, 2024 Vol.17 No.1, pp.120 - 135

Received: 10 Jun 2022
Accepted: 05 Aug 2022
Published online: 02 Dec 2023 *