A lexicographic maximin approach to the selective assessment routing problem

Max-min approaches have been widely applied to address equity as an essential consideration in humanitarian operations. These approaches, however, have a significant drawback of being neutral when it comes to solutions with the same minimum values. These equivalent solutions, from a max-min point of view, might be significantly different. We address this problem using the lexicographic maximin approach, a refinement of the classic max-min approach. We apply this approach in the rapid needs assessment process, which is carried out immediately after the onset of a disaster, to investigate the disaster’s impact on the affected community groups through field visits. We construct routes for an assessment plan to cover community groups, each carrying a distinct characteristic, such that the vector of coverage ratios are maximized. We define the leximin selective assessment problem, which considers the bi-objective optimization of total assessment time and coverage ratio vector maximization. We solve the bi-objective problem by a heuristic approach based on the multi-directional local search framework.