Analysis of Effects of Socioeconomic Status on Hurricane Disaster Relief Plans

Mark W. Horner and Joni A. Downs

Understanding the impacts of transportation policies on different socioeconomic groups is a crucial part of ensuring equity in the overall transportation planning process. However, despite substantial research on the socioeconomic impacts of transportation in various contexts, there has been relatively little discussion of their potential inuence on the provision of disaster relief. After the recent catastrophic natural disasters and terrorist acts around the world, transportation for disaster relief has become an increasingly important area of research. This paper focuses on the provision of disaster relief after a hurricane. By using a spatial model developed to site facilities for the distribution of relief goods, the study described in this paper considered the various decisions related to where these facilities should be located and investigated the differential impacts of the decisions on socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. The model is formulated and solved by using spatial data for a midsized city in the southeastern United States. The results of the analysis point out the differential accessibility to relief goods that population groups may experience and suggest that consideration of socioeconomic status in future disaster relief decision making is warranted.

Understanding the impacts of transportation policies on different socioeconomic groups is a crucial part of ensuring equity in the overall transportation planning process (13). This is readily apparent in the transportation literature aimed at measuring how accessible people are to various goods and services (4). Once basic access questions are satised in terms of whether transportation services are directly available to people (57 ), accessibility researchers have probed the effectiveness of how well transportation systems get people to the places that they need to visit (8) and have also evaluated the spatial distribution of activities and opportunities relative to the locations of the people who need them (9). However, despite substantial research on the socioeconomic impacts of differential accessibility in various transportation-related contexts (1013), there has been relatively little discussion of how transportation planning strategies may inuence accessibility to disaster relief supplies at distribution centers. In fact, after recent catastrophic natural disasters and terrorist acts around the world (1416), disaster relief service provision has become an increasingly important area of transportation research (17). During emergency situations, relief planners and government agencies must be prepared to provide populations with relief goods and services. These may include
Department of Geography, Florida State University, 323 Bellamy Building, Tallahassee, FL 32306-2190. Corresponding author: M. W. Horner, mhorner@ fsu.edu. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2067, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2008, pp. 110. DOI: 10.3141/2067-01

items such as food, water, and ice, as well as services, such as medical care. A key issue in developing disaster relief plans is determining an efficient and equitable strategy for the distribution of goods. Therefore, the goal in relief planning must be to make relief goods as accessible as possible, thus minimizing the effort necessary for people to reach them. This requires careful consideration of where the distribution facilities should be placed. The socioeconomic characteristics of people must weigh in the decision of where to site relief distribution facilities. For example, in planning for hurricane disaster relief, it is recognized that some people will not have access to vehicles or may have physical impairments that limit their ability to leave their homes (18), which will influence where facilities should be placed. Similarly, hurricane evacuation rates are always uncertain, meaning that some people may choose to remain in their homes rather than evacuate. Hurricane evacuation rates vary with the socioeconomic characteristics of households and the means of transportation available to them (19). In short, similar to other areas of transportation planning, there is a potential for people to experience inequitable accessibility to relief goods and services. Focusing on the case of hurricane disaster relief, this paper explores the interactions between populations socioeconomic characteristics and planning for the distribution of goods. A geographic information system (GIS)-based spatial optimization model is used to site facilities for the distribution of hurricane disaster relief goods under several scenarios. The scenarios track both how relief strategies change with specification in demand and how the model provides socioeconomically disadvantaged groups access to relief goods. The study area chosen is a midsized city in the southeastern United States. The next section provides brief background information on hurricane disaster relief concepts and discusses the relevant literature from recent GIS-based modeling efforts dealing with transportation and service provision. From there, the spatial modeling approach is presented. This is followed by a discussion of the data used and a presentation of the modeling results. The paper closes with summary remarks and suggestions for future research.

BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW Two streams of literature inform the present research effort. The rst one is the role of transportation in mitigating the impacts of a hurricane, including the need to provide various transportation-related services to the populations at risk. The second one is the substantial amount of work in the broader transportation literature that has looked at differential accessibility to goods and services. Each of these interrelated areas is reviewed in turn.
1

Transportation Research Record 2067

Transportation, Vulnerabilities, and Hurricane Impacts Four named storms hit the U.S. Gulf Coast of Florida in 2004. During August 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused approximately $81 billion in damage in Louisiana and Mississippi (20). Although the 2006 hurricane season was less active than the previous two seasons, recent predictions regarding upcoming hurricane seasons suggest more storm activity than normal (21). In fact, May 2007 predictions set a 74% probability that a major storm would hit the U.S. coast in 2007, which is in contrast to the 52% probability of such an occurrence during the last century (21). Perhaps, unsurprisingly, there has been an increased focus on disaster preparedness, relief, and mitigation. As images of urban warfare and people ghting for survival were broadcast from New Orleans, Louisiana (22), along with reports that relief efforts had been mismanaged at the highest levels of government (23), the Hurricane Katrina experience single-handedly set off a national debate about social equity, the vulnerability of populations, and the need for better disaster relief planning (24, 25). Moreover, Hurricane Katrina demonstrated a role for increased transportation policy efforts in hurricane disaster relief provision and planning. As Cutter et al. point out, Hurricane Katrina struck 2 days before the issuance of welfare checks in New Orleans (18). Had the timing of the storm been different, more people may have had the monetary resources to secure transportation and leave the city before Hurricane Katrinas onset. Instead, many were stranded in the urban area of New Orleans without sufficient food, water, ice, and the other supplies necessary to sustain their lives. Additionally, the widely publicized policy of moving evacuees to the New Orleans Superdome for relief turned out to exacerbate the situation, because damage to the structure and a lack of supplies contributed to unsafe conditions there (26). In post-Hurricane Katrina interviews conducted with 408 people who stayed behind after the storm and then relocated to Houston, Texas, approximately 42% indicated that they had no way of leaving New Orleans (27 ). Of those people with no way of leaving, 39% of them reported incomes of $10,000 or less in the prior year (27 ). On the basis of these events, important work on transportation and disaster relief planning needs to be done. The transportation community has long explored issues of hurricane evacuation and modeling, and recently, much progress has been made in the area (15, 2832). Transportation research should also consider the accessibility challenges of making relief goods and services available to those in need. Consideration should be given to conducting research that addresses the potential differential needs of various population and socioeconomic groups. Although there has not been much research on disaster relief, transportation specialists have investigated equity and accessibility issues in other transportation planning contexts. The next section details some of these studies.

sources describing the locations of people and their characteristics, coupled with powerful computer-based geospatial tools such as GISs (36, 37), researchers have been able to probe accessibility issues with more depth and sophistication. Therefore, among the many advances in GIS-based accessibility research, socioeconomic status and locational disparities have been more closely tracked to shape peoples access to goods and services. The design of a transportation system itself, together with the geography of those whom it is supposed to service, sometimes results in inequitable access to activities. For example, Horner and Mefford analyzed the bus transit system in Austin, Texas, and found that the accessibility to employment opportunities that the system provides to each neighborhood differs substantially among demographic and socioeconomic groups (38). In other cases, certain populations may be more at risk for exclusion from services than others. To this end, Casas et al. demonstrated the potential for identifying children who are at risk from social exclusion because of a lack of available transportation alternatives (39). Even equal accessibility to what are thought to be the most basic goods is not guaranteed. Smoyer-Tomic et al. investigated neighborhood accessibility to food sources in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and found that people in areas with lower incomes tended to have poorer accessibility to supermarkets (40). In light of these and other lessons, researchers have increasingly been keen to account for the role of socioeconomic characteristics that shape accessibility to goods and services. This is reected in GISbased studies that have looked to determine accessible locations for shelters for homeless people (41), medical clinics (42, 43), rail transit stops (35), and many other important public and private facilities. However, research that involves nding accessibility-maximizing sites for the distribution of hurricane relief goods and transportation points is in its infancy (17) and has not considered these issues. Furthermore, as this literature review has shown, socioeconomic considerations gure prominently in the disaster relief problem. Thus, future research on the distribution of hurricane disaster relief goods should explore ways of addressing the needs of diverse populations.

MODEL OVERVIEW Before the start of the Atlantic hurricane season in the southeastern United States (June 1 to November 30), state and local governments begin implementing prespecied plans on how relief goods, such as bottled water, ice, and other basic foodstuffs, will be distributed in the event of an emergency (44). Most of these strategies involve the stockpiling of goods at certain accessible points within the target region. For the purposes of this research, that target region is a city and its metropolitan area. The idea is to determine the locations for goods distribution a priori and then to activate the distribution of goods once the weather conditions have improved sufficiently to begin operations. Many possible routing protocols can be used to site relief facilities and relief goods. Recent work has reviewed some of the issues and models available for this task (17) and concluded that a supply chain that funnels relief goods from larger warehouses to smaller distribution centers, termed break-of-bulk (BOB) points, and on to neighborhoods is representative of the process used in practice. Essentially, a few sizeable warehouses keep large quantities of goods. Typically, the warehouses are cited at too few locations for direct access by the populations in the affected study area. Thus, goods are loaded onto trucks and transported to intermediate BOB points. It is from these BOB points that the public receives the goods

Overview of Integrated GIS-Based Accessibility Modeling Research A substantial amount of research effort has been spent on understanding, measuring, and ultimately, seeking to improve peoples accessibility to goods, services, and activities (33). From long-standing theoretical discussions on the role of race and space in securing employment (34) to demographically driven infrastructure placement studies (35), the role of transportation in facilitating accessibility is unquestioned. With the advent of rich, detailed spatial data

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that they need. In some instances, people may be able to drive their cars or walk to the BOB point to receive aid. In other situations, goods at BOB locations may be loaded onto smaller trucks and carried directly into residential areas. The nature of these interactions is outlined in Figure 1. As Figure 1 suggests, because BOB points represent the key to access to relief goods, the location of their placement becomes the critical decision. In previous research, Horner and Downs devised the multilevel goods assignment problem (MGAP) for the analysis of such a situation (17). MGAP seeks to minimize the interaction costs of moving goods from warehouses to BOB points (Z1) and from BOB points to residential neighborhoods (Z2). With the warehouse locations and residential neighborhood locations known, MGAP is used to nd the most accessible BOB locations from a set of candidates. The number of BOB points is a variable that may be input by the user. By using the model and notation established by Horner and Downs (17), its formulation is as follows: minimize Z1 = ai cij xij
i I j J

ai = costs associated with conducting relief operations at warehouse i, bm = demand for relief goods (e.g., population) at neighborhood m, cij = transportation costs between warehouse i and BOB point j, and cmj = transportation costs between neighborhood m and BOB point j. MGAP is an integer program specied in two distinct objectives. It minimizes the interaction costs of connecting warehouses to BOB points (Equation 1a) and minimizes the interaction costs of BOB points serving relief goods to neighborhoods (Equation 1b). Constraints (Equation 2) stipulate that each warehouse services a predetermined total number of BOB locations. Warehouses may supply only sited BOB points (Equation 3). Neighborhoods are served by exactly one BOB point (Equation 4), and neighborhoods must have a BOB point sited within them to distribute goods to neighborhoods (Equation 5). p neighborhoods (where p is a user-determined number) will become BOB locations (Equation 6). In sum, MGAP nds locations for the p BOB facilities that minimize the total response time. Note that MGAP does not determine actual goods ows. Rather, it creates a general goods distribution plan that seeks to minimize interaction costs. It implicitly assumes an uncapacitated ow system in which the demand for goods would be met under any BOB point siting scenario. MGAP is a multiobjective optimization model. One of the most frequently used means of solving such problems uses the weighting method (4547). In this approach, given a number , where is 0, the two distinct objectives may be joined to form Zc, such that Zc = Z1 + (1 ) Z2 (8)

(1a)

Z2 =

m M j J

b c

m mj

ymj

(1b)

subject to

x
j J i I

ij

qi

i I j J m M j J , m M , j m

(2)

xij = y jj y
j J mj

(3)

=1

(4) (5) (6)

y jj ymj 0

y
j J

jj

=p i I , j J ; ymj , y jj ( 0, 1) j J , m M

xij ( 0, 1) where

(7)

index of all warehouses in I, index of all BOB locations in J, index of all neighborhood locations in M, user-dened number of BOB points to be sited, user-dened minimum number of BOB points to be serviced by warehouse i, xij = 1 if warehouse i ships to BOB point j and 0 otherwise, ymj = 1 if BOB point j supplies neighborhood m and 0 otherwise, yjj = 1 if neighborhood m is where BOB point j is sited and 0 otherwise,

i j m p qi

= = = = =

According to Equation 8, the analyst may choose values for (0 1) and solve the related model to test a variety of plans for the distribution of relief goods. It is important to realize that the two objectives are quite often in conict with one another. Shortened linkages from the warehouse to the BOB points come at the expense of longer linkages from the BOB points to the neighborhoods and vice versa. Thus, the analyst may use weights to specify what type of policy should be pursued. It is usually of greater importance to ensure the shortest possible links between BOB points and neighborhoods so that people will have to travel the least distance to get relief. The rst implementation of MGAP by Horner and Downs explored a wide range of weighting scenarios based on Equation 8, which produced relief distribution networks of various geographic characteristics (17). One feature of their analysis was the use of zone-level population counts as a proxy for the demand for relief goods at neighborhoods (bm). These counts were unrened and did not differentiate the population by potential need or socioeconomic characteristics. The ensuing analysis focuses on exploring how changes in the demand representation affects vulnerable socioeconomic groups.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS This analysis investigates the impacts of various socioeconomic demand specifications on accessibility to centers where relief goods are distributed. The simulations adopt a version of MGAP and are executed in a GIS. The goal is to gain insights into how demand attributes affect modeled BOB facility locations. Of interest is learning more about the sensitivity of relief distribution

Warehouse

Break of Bulk Point (BOB)

Residential Neighborhood

FIGURE 1

Overview of goods distribution process.

Transportation Research Record 2067

plans to socioeconomic specifications, as well as investigating whether these changes would adversely affect selected disadvantaged socioeconomic groups.

Study Area and Data Leon County, Florida, which contains the city of Tallahassee, was selected for study. The estimated population of Leon County was 245,756 in 2005. The traffic analysis zones (TAZs) that existed in 2000 were chosen as the units of analysis. These are part of the Census Transportation Planning Package (CTPP) distributed by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and compiled by the Bureau of the Census (available at www.census.gov).

Household income is a direct measure of socioeconomic status and, therefore, the amount of resources that a household has at its disposal. The approach used here adopts the counts of households classified by income to represent the demand for goods at neighborhoods (bm). For example, suppose that somebody was interested in modeling the relief demand for households with incomes of $29,999 or less. If Neighborhood (TAZ) 254 had 62 households with these incomes, then in MGAP, b254 would be set equal to 62. The other 593 neighborhoods have similarly assigned values. Essentially, the coefficient vector bm reects the demand scenario of interest in MGAP.

Warehouse Locations, BOB Locations, and Street Infrastructure

Data on warehouse locations, potential BOB locations, and street infrastructure are identical to those used in the work of Horner and Downs (17 ). There are ve randomly selected warehouse locations in Leon County, and each TAZ is considered a candidate location for placement of a BOB point. TAZs are represented as points in the GIS on the basis of their centroid locations. Spatial data on the streets in Leon County come from enhanced TIGER (2002) GIS line les.

Demand for Relief Goods

Leon County contains 594 TAZs, which proxy neighborhoods in the analyses. Many attributes about the people living and working in the TAZs are available from the Bureau of the Census. For this study, TAZ-level counts of households classied by their income level were chosen. These data originate from Table 66 in Part 1 of CTPP, which indicate that Leon County had 95,637 households in 2000. The authors chose to use the 2000 counts as published and did not scale these household counts to counts for 2007 or to seek out a more recent database. Figure 2 displays the cumulative Leon County household income totals. As shown in Figure 2, about 14,000 Leon County households had incomes of $9,999 or less in 2000, and slightly more than half of the households had incomes of $39,999 or less.

Experimental Design The experiments were designed to explore the effects of demand representation on the siting of relief facilities. To this end, many

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

100,000 90,000 80,000 70,000 60,000 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 -

Cumulative Percentage

99 H 9 to $5 9, 99 H H 9 to $7 4, 99 H H 9 to $9 9, H 99 H to 9 $1 24 H ,9 H 99 to $1 49 ,9 H 99 H to $1 50 K+

99

99

99

$1 9,

to $3

to $3

H to

H to

to

to

to

H to

H H

H H

H H

H H

to

Household (HH) Income Classes

FIGURE 2

Cumulative distribution of incomes in Leon County (2000).

$4 9,

$2 4

$2 9

$1

$4

Percent of HH Count of HH

99

99

99

99

,9

,9

4,

,9

4,

9,

$9

4,

99

Absolute Count

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of the flexible parameters and assumptions inherent to MGAP are fixed at certain specific values or conditions to avoid any unintended conflicts with the overarching objective. For example, although the MGAP allows any number of BOB facilities to be sited, the simulations were restricted to trials of 10, 20, and 30 BOB points because these are reasonable numbers of facilities that could be used in practice. In the experiments, constraints (Equation 2) are set such that each warehouse must service at least one BOB point. In other words, it is assumed that each warehouse must be used in the goods delivery plan. As described by Equation 8, MGAP supports various weighting schemes that favor either short links from the warehouse to the BOB points (Equation 1a) or short links from the BOB points to a neighborhood (Equation 1b). A weighting scheme that strongly favors the second objective was adopted because emergency planners typically want to minimize the time that people need to travel to receive goods, and all simulations were run with the same set of weights ( = 0.5). MGAP also has the exibility to account for the costs of operating warehouses as a linear function of the interaction costs with the sited BOB points (i.e., ai in Equation 1a). At the time of the study, no data on the costs of operating warehouses were available, and furthermore, because the linkage between the warehouse and the BOB point was deemphasized with the weighting choice for , all warehouse operation costs were able to be set equal to 1 without consequence. Lastly, the interaction costs between warehouses, BOB points, and neighborhoods (TAZ centroids) were the shortest network travel times between these locations. Travel times were estimated on the basis of the enhanced TIGER les. Road classication data were used to infer speeds, which, combined with length data, produced travel times. A delay factor was added to the free-ow travel time to account for active stoplights and other possible impediments, but no formal estimate of congestion was included, as it was assumed that traffic would be relatively sparse after a hurricane. The experiments looked to test the stability in BOB facility placement as a function of input relief demand. MGAP is initially solved by using the lowest income class (households with incomes of $9,999 or less) as the representation of demand for relief goods. Then, each higher income bracket, according to the Bureau of the Census classification, is added to the cumulative total such that the demand for relief for households is modeled up to the upper income limit. The income classifications used correspond to the cumulative breaks in Figure 2. The locations of the lowest income household classification are displayed in Figure 3, in which the count of households is drawn as a proportional circle at the location of the TAZ centroid. The locations of all households in Leon County are also shown in Figure 3. It will be interesting to explore how selected BOB locations and response times might change as households with higher incomes in need of relief are considered.

sion 4.7). All problems were solved either to optimality or to within a 0.1% optimality gap.

Effects of Demand Changes on Response Times

The results of the simulations are displayed in Table 1. Table 1 reports the response times from the BOB point to the neighborhood for the 15 demand trials. Although the interaction times for the linkages from the warehouse to the BOB points are also available, these are not meaningful in the context of the experiment. Moreover, because of the weighting scheme adopted, it is already known that short warehouseBOB point links are not a priority for MGAP. The solutions shown consist of the shortest possible BOB pointneighborhood links. Each demand trial consists of three sets of location scenarios in which 10, 20, or 30 BOB points are to be sited, for 45 model runs in total. In Trial 1, if 10 BOB points are sited ( p = 10), then people must take about 46,000 min in total to travel and access their nearest facility or 46,000 min in total is required for the response to make its way from BOB points to neighborhoods, depending on the routing protocol. The average response time is calculated from the total response time divided by the number of households in the income group and is about 3.25 min for Trial 1 with 10 BOB points. As facilities are added in Trial 1, the average response time goes down to approximately 1.65 min with 30 BOB points. In this case, the average distance that people are away from their nearest BOB point is decreased by more than 50% as more facilities are added. By moving across Table 1 and holding the trial constant, the results show intuitively that a reduction in the number of BOB points to be sited results in increased average response times (i.e., reduce neighborhood accessibility). This is because the model has fewer BOB points to work with as it is trying to minimize interaction costs. More interesting are the changes in the response times as the trials adopt alternative demand specications. In Trial 2, in addition to households with incomes of less than $9,999, households with incomes between $10,000 and $14,999 are also considered to need assistance. When this change is accounted for in the model, it results in the overall response time increasing slightly from Trial 1 in all three scenarios with different numbers of BOB points. When more households are added to the demand for relief in subsequent trials (according to income classications), the average response time increases in all scenarios with different numbers of BOB points. On the basis of the maps of the Leon County area, this suggests that higher-income individuals generally live farther from the central locations. When these people are included in the demand for relief, it forces the model to serve larger geographical areas with equivalent numbers of facilities. When Trial 15 is reached, the response times for all scenarios with different numbers of BOB points peak at 5.04 min for the case when p is equal to 10. For the scenario with 10 BOB points, 5.04 min marks an increase in response time of about 55% compared with that for Trial 1.

Modeling Results All analyses were carried out on a standard PC with a Pentium 4 processor (3.2 GHz, 3 GB of memory) and the Windows XP operating system. Commercial optimization software (CPLEX, version 10.0) was used to solve all instances of MGAP. Spatial data were managed with a specialized GIS for transportation (TransCAD, ver-

Effects of Demand Changes on Vulnerable Socioeconomic Groups

The results of the trials show that the average response time increases as additional households needing relief are taken into consideration.

Transportation Research Record 2067

(a)

(b) FIGURE 3 Distribution of households (HH) and warehouse locations in Leon County, Florida: (a) households with incomes (w/inc.) less than $10,000 and (b) all households.

Horner and Downs

TABLE 1

Results for Demand Relief Scenarios for Linkages from BOB Points to Neighborhoods p = 30 p = 20 Avg. Res. Time (min) 1.65 1.86 1.99 2.15 2.25 2.31 2.38 2.46 2.51 2.60 2.72 2.82 2.87 2.90 2.93 Total Res. Time (min) 31,406.65 49,730.81 68,569.61 91,189.23 110,782.51 130,801.37 149,027.73 170,779.99 187,940.22 219,094.96 257,551.67 297,001.63 317,350.17 327,447.18 344,472.02 Avg. Res. Time (min) 2.23 2.45 2.57 2.72 2.81 2.90 2.98 3.09 3.15 3.25 3.37 3.47 3.52 3.56 3.60 p = 10 Total Res. Time (min) 45,894.00 70,245.69 96,704.35 131,433.29 160,188.84 187,959.81 213,071.00 244,274.84 268,565.99 313,565.90 368,824.22 421,462.94 448,305.23 460,543.62 482,324.45 Avg. Res. Time (min) 3.25 3.45 3.63 3.92 4.06 4.17 4.26 4.42 4.51 4.65 4.82 4.92 4.98 5.00 5.04

Trial 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Income Class HH to $9,999 HH to $14,999 HH to $19,999 HH to $24,999 HH to $29,999 HH to $34,999 HH to $39,999 HH to $44,999 HH to $49,999 HH to $59,999 HH to $74,999 HH to $99,999 HH to $124,999 HH to $149,999 HH to $150K+

HH in Group 14,108 20,333 26,675 33,494 39,465 45,039 49,963 55,253 59,592 67,404 76,496 85,648 90,095 92,089 95,637

Total Res. Time (min) 23,259.45 37,776.77 53,082.23 71,962.48 88,762.45 104,187.60 118,886.16 135,923.31 149,469.25 175,162.21 207,937.86 241,382.56 258,635.00 266,851.24 280,300.76

NOTE: Res. = response; Avg. = average.

What is not apparent from the analysis is how the change in optimal locations from trial to trial might affect socioeconomically vulnerable populations. The second phase of the analysis explores how changes in the demand assumptions affect accessibility to disaster relief for socioeconomic groups who are the least well off. Those are households with incomes of $9,999 or less. To explore these effects, three of the scenarios from the 15 trials were investigated in detail. These are Trials 1, 8, and 15 for p equal to 10. Trial 1 involved only the lowest income group, and Trials 8 and 15 approximately represent the middle and the total of the income distribution, respectively. By using the lowest income group as a reference, the way in which alternative demand specications affect accessibility to BOB locations and, hence, relief goods can be isolated. The results of these inquiries are shown in Table 2. Scenario 1 repeats the identical situation in Trial 1 from Table 1, and thus, there is no change in the average response time for p equal to 10; both average response times are equal to 3.25 min. If each neighborhoods travel time to the nearest BOB point is examined under this scenario, the maximum time that any neighborhood is from a facil-

ity is approximately 31.27 min. If the reference group is held constant and the BOB locations associated with Trial 8 are examined, the average response travel time increases slightly by 0.26 min, whereas the maximum drops slightly (Scenario 2). In Scenario 3, when all households are considered in need of demand, the impact on the reference group is an additional 0.75 min. The spatial locations of the three sets of BOB points are shown in Figure 4. Figure 4 shows that there are signicant changes in the BOB locations across the three scenarios, and numerically, the alternative demand specications do produce measurable impacts on the poorest households accessibility to relief goods.

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS Ensuring peoples accessibility to goods and services remains a key consideration across many transportation planning settings. This study has explored the interrelationships between socioeconomic status and various strategies for distributing relief to people after a hurricane. The results demonstrated that measures of average response

TABLE 2 Scenario 1 2 3

Demand Impact Specification on Response Times of Reference Group Income Group HH to $9,999 HH to $44,999 All households Avg. Ref. Resp. Group Time 3.25 3.52 4.00 Abs. Cng. from Ref. Group 0.00 0.26 0.75 Max. Neigh. Ref. Group Resp. Time 31.27 29.77 29.03 Abs. Cng. from Ref. Group 0.00 1.50 2.24

NOTE: The reference group comprised households with annual incomes up to $9,999. Avg. Ref. Group Resp. Time = average response time for the reference group (in minutes), Abs. Cng. from Ref. Group = absolute change in the response time compared with that for the reference group (in minutes), Max. Neigh. Ref. Group Resp. Time = maximum response time for the neighborhood reference group (in minutes).

Transportation Research Record 2067

(a)

(b)

(c) FIGURE 4 Comparison of three facility location scenarios: (a) Scenario 1, BOB point placement when households with incomes up to $9,999 are considered; (b) Scenario 2, BOB point placement when households with incomes up to $44,999 are considered; and (c) Scenario 3, BOB point placement when all households are considered.

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time (from populations to relief facilities) uctuate depending on how the demand for relief is specied. This suggests that care must be taken when representations of demand are implemented. Research focused specifically on the modeling of locations for hurricane disaster relief is limited to date, but there are many avenues for future work. For instance, this study chose a narrow indicator of socioeconomic status (household income) and used it as the basis on which to structure the analysis. Other attributes or perhaps composite indexes could certainly be developed as proxies for the likely demand for services. Similarly, this study limited its probing of the data and results to a single reference group: those households with incomes of $9,999 or less. This reflected the conservative approach taken here, as this income bracket is indisputably the most limited in terms of financial resources. Thus, other research might want to experiment with broader definitions of need and include a greater swath of the population in the measure for demand. In sum, future research should better consider the needs of various socioeconomic groups to maximize the effectiveness of disaster relief efforts.

16. 17.

18.

19.

20. 21.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors acknowledge the National Science Foundations support of this research.

22. 23. 24.

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The work contained in this paper represents the authors efforts and opinions; the National Science Foundation is not responsible for its contents. The Social, Economic, and Cultural Issues Section sponsored publication of this paper.