Harwin de Vries: Common Relief Network Design Assumptions that Fall Short: The Role of Staging Hubs in Ukraine

Staging hubs are facilities that emerge or are activated as part of a specific humanitarian response. They serve as intermediate nodes between the origin of relief items and points of distribution. Most major disasters induce granular networks of staging hubs. As such, many decisions must be made about their design – the number of hubs, hub locations, hub roles, supply, allocation, and distribution. Literature has proposed numerous optimization models to support such decisions. However, a strong empirical foundation for modelling choices is lacking. We compare twelve assumptions commonly made in relief network design models with the realities observed in our field research in Ukraine, involving visits of 14 staging hubs and 27 interviews. Our results yield stark differences: 1) staging hubs affect key objectives in many more ways than commonly assumed, 2) decision variables that are commonly assumed to be feasible and in the hands of a single decision maker are often infeasible or made by external decision makers, and 3) model parameters are often unknown, dynamic, uncertain, and/or endogenous, in contrast with what is commonly assumed. Our findings provide a basis for future modelling work on this topic, but also raise several fundamental questions and research directions our field must address if it is serious about improving relief network design choices. 

Harwin de Vries is Associate Professor at the Technology and Operations Management department at RSM. His research focuses on health & humanitarian logistics, with a particular focus on disaster relief logistics and access to essential medicines and health services in LMICs.