Humanitarian relief organizations struggle with many uncertainties and risks during the response. Through this paper, field-driven insights will be used to discuss how practitioners currently mitigate such risks in relief transportation. The qualitative analysis of collected data after the 2015 Nepal earthquake reveals some of the most important transportation risks that threatened relief operations in response: delivery delays; loss of cargo; insufficient capacity; cargo decay; market fluctuations; unreliable information; and ethical concerns. Research findings explain that using logistics service providers has helped in mitigating transportation risks and improved the overall performance of humanitarian supply chain in Nepal response.

1. Mitigating
Transportation Risks at
Humanitarian Supply Chains
Insights from
2015 Nepal earthquake

2. Tina Comes
Professor, CIEM, Department of ICT, UiA
tina.comes@uia.no
Matthieu Lauras
Associate Professors, Mines d`Albi, University of Toulouse
matthieu.lauras@mines-albi.fr
Hossein Baharmand
PhD Research Fellow, CIEM, Department of ICT, University of Agder
hossein.baharmand@uia.no

3. Outline
▪ The 2015 Nepal earthquake
▪ Humanitarian Supply chains and Risks
▪ State-of-the-art
▪ Research Methodology
▪ Findings from Nepal response
▪ Keypoints
▪ Conclusion

4. 1. The
2015 Nepal
earthquake

5. 8,790 casualtiesthat is more than 50% of total deaths related to disasters in
Asia and the Pacific in 2015*
7,000,000,000 $Total value of disaster effects (damages and losses)**
22,300injuriesthat mostly were located in very remote areas**
* Source: UN (ESCAP 2015)
**Source: Government of Nepal (PDNA 2015)

6. Total affected
people:
5,639,722*
*Source: Government of
Nepal

7. 2.
Humanitarian Supply Chains (HSCs)
Characteristics
• Uncertainties such as unknown supply/demand and available resources;
• Low volunteer skills, high rotation of personnel, poor/damaged local infrastructure;
• Incomplete transportation networks, security problems, limited reliable information.

8. HSC & Risks
Risk is the outcome of uncertain events
that prevent the supply chain from
achieving its performance aims
(Heckmann et al., 2015).

9. Infrastracture
Risks
▪ Information Technology ▪ Financial Systems ▪ Transportation
Any disruption in this category can lead to serious problems in HSC
(Comes and Van de Walle, 2014)
Risk Mitigation: a sustained action to reduce or eliminate the risk to people and
property from hazards and their effects (Tang and Musa, 2011).
Applying best practices from commercial supply chain management to the
humanitarian context (Husdal, 2010):
▪ Transfer or delegate some (or all) logistics services, e.g. transportation, to
logistics service providers (LSP) .

10. “ Do what you do best and
outsource the rest!
Peter Drucker

11. 3. State-of-the-art
LSPs in the contexts of HSC
Author(s) Methodology Major Finding(s) Limitations
Cozzolino et al.
(2012)
Propose a framework
and apply it to a case
study
LSPs can be a part of agile
strategy for relief
organizations
* Empirical research is
needed to enrich the
results
Merminod et al.
(2014)
Review the HSC
literature + reports
and online documents
LSPs are a key link in
resource coordination
* Empirical approach is
needed to better
identify relationships
Vega and
Roussat (2015)
Review the HSC
literature + Analyze
the websites of some
leading LSPs
Academic literature neglect
the roles of LSPs in
humanitarian logistics;
* Practitioners`
viewpoints/articles
are not included;
* Propositions are not
validated empirically

12. Nepal Field Research
June 2015
Nepal
Supporting Team:
Prof. Peter Groenewegen, VU;
Dr. Julie Ferguson, VU;
Prof. Bartel Van der Walle, TU;
Prof. Tina Comes, UiA;
Dr. Kees Boersma (VU)
Femke Mulder (VU);
Jeroen Wolbers (VU);
Kenny Meesters (TU);
Hossein Baharmand

13. Data Collection
▪ 38 semi-structured
interviews with distinct
representatives from 10
humanitarian organizations;
▪ 2 field trips to severely
affected areas (Nuwakot and
Rasuwa) and shadowing
field workers;
▪ Reviewing online resources,
local newspapers, and
clusters` minutes.
4. Research
Methodology
Data Analysis
▪ Converting recordings to
transcrpits and developing
coding scheme based on
transcripts and field notes;
▪ Coding in Nvivo and
extracting results for the
defined themes.

14. In the Field with
Practitioners
When nothing goes
right, turn left and
everything matters
“

15. 5. Findings form interviews
Transportation Risks
“The complexity of situation improved a lot after the second
major earthquake” UN representative, Kathmandu
Risks Main Driver(s) Risks Main Driver(s)
Delivery
delays
Inappropriate weather; traffic
density; road blockage
Loss of cargo Accidents; lanslides
Insufficient
capacity
Lack of available transportation
facilities; shortage of
experienced drivers/pilots
Cargo decay
/damage
Inappropriate type/mode of
transportation
Market
fluctuations
high demand and insufficient
supplies in market
Deceptive
information
ICT inf. breakdown; lack of inf.
sources; trucks with low tech.

16. Are you interested to know
what were the effects of
neglecting those risks?
Let`s see some field evidences

17. What
Happened?
3 relief helicopters crashed
untill the time of our field
research (geographic;
information; pilots).
Nearly 33 trucks had
accidents everyday in the
time of our field research
(infrastructure; technology;
information; drivers).
Damaged/decayed cargo
(transportation mode)

18. How do you
evaluate the
situation in
this video?

19. Findings form interviews
What was the situation?
The government of Nepal obliged international relief organizations to
identify and outsource the distribution of relief items to an implementing
local NGO.
?
And?
▪ the difficulty of procuring and managing a fleet during the immediate
response and shortly after that;
▪ some LSPs were more willing to cooperate with well-known HROs, for
instance, UN organizations

20. How did LSPs help
interviewed practitioners
Having worked in tourist industry
before the event of earthquake, they
- had connections in all over the country:
information
- had access to several experienced drivers:
cargo safety, ontime delivery
- Could provide variety of trucks:
appropriate capacity, cargo safety
- were familiar with roads and driving
culture: routing and ontime delivery
- knew police stations to receive updated
information about roads;
- had official insurance certificate and price
table;

21. Some Observed Key Points in the Field
until Early Recovery
25 April 12 May 21 June
Field Research
Much efforts and
energy were
devoted to
repond to
disruptions (the
outcome of risks)
instead of
investing on
mitigation
Lack of
knowledge or
experience
regarding risk
mitigation
strategies in the
field
Delivery delays,
huge backlog,
insufficient space
in warehouses,
several unmet
demands after 6
weeks

22. Keypoints
for Practitioners
▪ Transportation risks threaten the
performance of response from
several perspectives.
▪ LSPs are helpful in mitigating
transportation risks in humanitarian
supply chains.
▪ LSPs can improve the performance
of HSC within their services and
capabilities: situational awareness,
crisis mapping, need assessment

23. Opportunities for
Academics
Integrating LSPs when developing decision support systems for
HSCs: tracking and monitoring systems; crisis mapping
Developing analytical models for selecting LSPs in the contexts of
humanitarian disasters (what are the criteria and how to evaluate)

24. Conclusions
▪ We emprirically studied the role of LSPs in the context of
humanitarian supply chain with a field research at Nepal response.
▪ We collected data through interviews, online sources, and field
observations and analyzed them qualitatively.
▪ According to the findings, LSPs can bring significant assistance in
mitigating identified transportation risks in humanitarian supply
chains. And, improve the overall response performance.

25. Thanks!
Any questions?
hossein.baharmand@uia.no ciem.uia.no
@hbaharmand
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