Optimal location and capability of oil-spill response facilities for the south coast of Newfoundland

Manish Verma, Michel Gendreau, Gilbert Laporte

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

35 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

The south coast of Newfoundland (Canada) includes both open sea and semi-enclosed waterways which collectively account for over 20,000 vessel movements annually. Every such movement poses the risk of an oil spill which can endanger the fragile marine life and tourism locales in the region, and is a source of concern to the communities. In an effort to analyze the problem, we present a two-stage stochastic programming approach which tackles both the location and stockpile of equipment at the emergency response facilities. The proposed optimization program was tested on realistic data collected from publicly available reports and through personal communications with emergency response personnel. These data were then varied to solve a number of scenarios which account for the stochastic nature of the problem parameters. Although only two response facilities seem to be appropriate for almost all scenarios, the size of equipment stockpile is a function of both the societal disutility factor and the trade-off between environmental cost and facility and equipment acquisition cost.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)856-867
Number of pages12
JournalOmega (United Kingdom)
Volume41
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2013

Funding

This research was in part supported by three grants from the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada ( OGP 312936 , 338816-10 , and 39682-10 ). All three authors are members of the Interuniversity Research Centre on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation (CIRRELT) and acknowledge the research infrastructure provided by the Centre. In addition, the first author is also a member of the IBM Academic Initiative and acknowledges the access to CPLEX Optimization Package. The comments and suggestions of two anonymous referees and the Area Editor helped improve the paper significantly. Appendix A

Keywords

  • Environmental cost
  • Facility location
  • Marine oil spills
  • Societal risk
  • Stochastic programming

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Strategy and Management
  • Management Science and Operations Research
  • Information Systems and Management

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