Abstract Immediately after a major disaster large volumes of solicited and unsolicited relief items start to flow into the disaster affected region. This phenomenon is known as material convergence. The sheer volume of incoming materials, coupled with limited resources, make sorting and distribution of relief items a difficult task. The challenge is exacerbated when a large portion of the unsolicited donations are low-priority or inappropriate items, diverting volunteer, space, and transportation capacity from more critical items. This paper investigates volunteer allocation decisions under material convergence and varying levels of high-priority donations. First, we interview disaster response practitioners to understand challenges with resource allocation decisions. Then, we model the donation arrival and sorting process for both solicited and unsolicited donations as transient multi-server queues. Using this model, we quantify the level of material convergence and evaluate the impact of resource allocation decisions on relief item output. We provide insights that can help address the problems of resource allocation under material convergence, that are critical to satisfy needs of disaster victims.

中文翻译：

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物质融合的资源分配模型

摘要 重大灾害发生后，大量请求和主动提供的救济物品开始流入受灾地区。这种现象被称为物质收敛。大量的进料加上有限的资源，使救援物资的分类和分发成为一项艰巨的任务。当大部分未经请求的捐赠都是低优先级或不合适的物品时，这一挑战就会加剧，从而将志愿者、空间和运输能力从更重要的物品中转移出去。本文研究了材料趋同和不同级别的高优先级捐赠下的志愿者分配决策。首先，我们采访了灾难响应从业者，以了解资源分配决策的挑战。然后，我们将请求和非请求捐赠的捐赠到达和分类过程建模为瞬态多服务器队列。使用这个模型，我们量化了物质融合的水平，并评估了资源分配决策对救济项目产出的影响。我们提供的见解有助于解决物质融合下的资源分配问题，这对于满足灾民的需求至关重要。