Operation of Multimodal Transport Systems During Regional Mass Evacuations

Among the needs identified in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans was the requirement for improved disaster planning for persons without access to a private transportation. Limited planning for such individuals in New Orleans prior to 2005 left a significant portion of the mobility-limited population unable to flee in advance of the storm. Given that more than 1,500 people perished from direct effects of the storm and related flooding (1), discussions have turned to how many lives may have been saved with transportation assistance. Since 2005, New Orleans officials have developed transit assisted mass evacuation plans that consider the car less populations. Since this plan is relatively recent and does not have a history of experience on which to base its performance, it is difficult to know how well, or even if, it will work. Recently, one of the first attempts to microscopically model and simulate a transit-based evacuation plan has been undertaken by researchers at Louisiana State University. This paper describes the development of a microscopic evacuation traffic simulation in TRANSIMS and the results gained from two model sets to evaluate alternative transit evacuation routing plans in New Orleans. Several performance measures generated by TRANSIMS were used to evaluate the transit-based evacuation plan and determine the overall efficiency of the plan within the context of total evacuation time, average travel time, average evacuation speed and average queue length. Additional measures such as walking and waiting time were also used to assess the loading processes. Among the general findings of the research was that routing buses to alternate arterial routes reduced the overall travel time by up to 53 percent and the total evacuation time by up to 10 percent under certain conditions. It was also found that the transit evacuation had modest impacts on the overall general evacuation traffic process but did increase the average queue length on some interstate freeway segments. Finally, it was found that at least 68 percent of the transit dependent evacuees spent half an hour or less walking to the bus stops and/or waiting at bus stop and only 0.19 percent of them spent more than an hour not on transit in their evacuation trip.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Naghawi, Hana
  • Wolshon, Brian
  • 0000-0002-1703-2995
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 90th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2011-1-23 to 2011-1-27
• Date: 2011

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 17p
• Monograph Title: TRB 90th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Arterial highways; Buses; Disasters and emergency operations; Evacuation; Network analysis (Planning); Traffic simulation; Transportation disadvantaged persons; Travel time; Waiting time; Walking
• Identifier Terms: TRANSIMS (Computer model)
• Geographic Terms: New Orleans (Louisiana)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Public Transportation; Security and Emergencies; I70: Traffic and Transport;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01340296
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 11-1843
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 18 2011 11:43AM