Optimal recovery sequencing for enhanced resilience and service restoration in transportation networks

Critical infrastructure resilience has become a national priority for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Rapid and efficient restoration of service in damaged transportation networks is a key area of focus. The intent of this paper is to formulate a bi-level optimization model for network recovery and to demonstrate a solution approach for that optimization model. The lower-level problem involves solving for network flows, while the upper-level problem identifies the optimal recovery modes and sequences, using tools from the literature on multi-mode project scheduling problems. Application and advantages of this method are demonstrated through two examples.