# Relief Aircraft Dispatch Strategies Based on Different Levels of Information Sharing Systems
## 1 Introduction
* _Information about injuries and dynamic routing (in the air)_: this information is the dynamic flight plan that response headquarters design for aircraft, based on updated information regarding injuries. Three typical information sharing levels were used in our research, the criterion for which are outlined in Table 1.  
If devices for the different relief agents are unavailable or damaged by a disaster, communication among different entities such as aircraft dispatchers, shelter sites, and aircraft pilots is hindered. Consequently, aircraft dispatchers will be unaware of the extent of the damage in the disaster-affected area or the number of injured persons in shelters. In such cases, relief aircraft dispatchers must send aircraft to collect information on the shelter site. Flight missions would therefore include reconnaissance missions and transportation of injured persons. In this research, we refer to the information and communication level in this kind of air rescue activity as \"Level one\". Figure 1: Influencing factors. \"Point to point\" communication can be established and ensured through means such as equipping shelter sites and response centers with satellite telephones [4; 5]. In this case, when a disaster (earthquake) occurs, communication between the shelter site and relief response center can be established; thus, information on the rescue shelters can be reported rapidly to relieve the response center. Based on this information, aircraft dispatchments can be performed with more explicit destinations, that is, pilots are informed about the centers before they take off. We refer to this stage of information and communication as \"Level two\". If real-time communication among different agents can be established, such as using satellite broadcasting to develop an integrated disaster information service platform [2; 6], real-time connections among relief agents such as aircraft dispatchment centers, shelters, and pilots can be made available to support real-time rescue activities. In this case, the pilot will be aware of the destination before takeoff and can also make dynamic routing during the flight mission. We refer to this phase of information sharing as \"Level three\". Most of the demands from the affected area include food, medical aid, and injury transportation. According to [PERSON] et al. [1], aircraft usually embark on injury transportation missions by considering the advantages of speed and the ability to easily overcome ground obstacles. Therefore, the flight mission in our model aimed at injury transportation or personnel evacuation. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 reviews existing literature on air relief activities. Section 3 formally defines and presents a mathematical formulation of the aircraft dispatch problem. Section 4 describes three information-sharing systems and their corresponding assignment strategies. Section 5 briefly describes the agent-based simulation framework employed to model the dynamic system of injury centers, aircraft, and dispatch centers in airports. Section 6 lists the experiments designed to compare different dispatch strategies and presents the computational results. Finally, Section 7 presents the conclusion \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline  & **Information about** & **Information about Injuries** & **Information about** \\  & **Injuries from** & **and Corresponding Flight** & **Injuries and** \\  & **Shelters** & **Routing before Takeoff (at** & **Dynamic Routing** \\  & & **the Airport)** & **(in the Air)** \\ \hline Level one & No & No & No \\ Level two & Yes & Yes & No \\ Level three & Yes & Yes & Yes \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Different levels of information sharing systems. Figure 2: Information used in air relief activities.