Optimal Budget Allocation to Improve Critical Infrastructure during Earthquakes

Abstract:This article studies the integrated role of three infrastructure management agencies with responsibilities that span from pre-disaster mitigation and preparedness actions to post-disaster response operations during earthquakes. Each agency's actions are constrained by a given budget that is assigned to that agency by a master decision-maker (the federal government). This article presents a bi-level Stackelberg game where the master decision-maker allocates a total budget between the agencies with the objective of minimizing the earthquake death toll. A meta-heuristic particle swarm optimization algorithm is used to find the optimal solution of the Stackelberg game. Results show that in lower budgets, it is better to invest in the emergency response agency and the transportation agency. Furthermore, the results indicate that excessive investment in the transportation agency without adequate investment in the emergency response agency is inefficient.