Modeling and Assessment of Crossing Elimination for No-Notice Evacuations

Crossing elimination is a relatively recent strategy that emergency managers and departments of transportation may consider during no-notice evacuations. In this strategy, certain intersection movements that may be permissible under normal operating conditions are prohibited so that arterial traffic flow will increase. A few previous studies examined this strategy with contraflow operations. However, the benefits of crossing elimination alone remain unclear. An assessment of the effects of intersection crossing elimination during evacuations helps fill this knowledge gap. A simulation–optimization model was developed to determine the near-optimal configuration of intersection movements from a set of prespecified possible configurations for intersections in a given area. At the optimization level, the total travel time of evacuees was minimized, and at the lower level, all traffic was assigned to the network with DYNUST traffic assignment simulation software. A simulated annealing heuristic was used to solve the optimization problem. The entire method was applied to a real network to assess the impact of crossing elimination. Three scenarios were developed with combinations of evacuee destination and departure time distributions. Results for these scenarios indicated that total evacuee travel time was improved by about 3% to 5% (9,700 to 11,200 h for about 300,000 evacuees). The availability of through movements and the elimination of merging points were the two factors influencing the selection of modified configurations for intersection movement.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.3141/2459-11
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9780309295512
• Authors:
  • Jahangiri, Arash
  • Murray-Tuite, Pamela
  • Ghanipoor Machiani, Sahar
  • Park, Byungkyu (Brian)
  • Wolshon, Brian
• Publication Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 91–100
• Monograph Title: Critical Infrastructure, Emergency Evacuation, and Logistics of Disaster Recovery 2014
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
  • Issue Number: 2459
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Area traffic signal control; Emergency management; Evacuation; Intersections; Simulated annealing; Travel time; Uninterrupted flow
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Security and Emergencies; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01506567
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9780309295512
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-1455
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 5 2014 9:48AM