Prototype Design for a Predictive Model to Improve Evacuation Operations: Technical Report

Mass evacuations of the Texas Gulf Coast remain a difficult challenge. These events are massive in scale, highly complex, and entail an intricate, ever-changing conglomeration of technical and jurisdictional issues. This project focused primarily on the specific issue of developing a new technical tool to help TxDOT and other key operating agencies/stakeholders better predict when major elements of evacuation operations should be implemented. In particular, a variety of technical analyses were employed to develop a new, prototype decision support system that provides additional insights to more effectively decide when evaculane shoulder operations versus full contraflow operations are needed to manage evacuation demand. This new tool has a predictive mechanism designed to provide lead time for implementing these two prospective operational scenarios. The work conducted during this research involved a large-scale application of the DynusT model, and integrates several different factors into the evacuation operation decision-making process―namely real-time traffic conditions, hurricane characteristics (strength and size) and human behavior.

• Record URL:
  • http://tti.tamu.edu/documents/0-6121-1.pdf
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  Texas Transportation Institute

  Texas A&M University System, 3135 TAMU
  College Station, TX  United States  77843-3135

  Texas Department of Transportation

  Research and Technology Implementation Office, P.O. Box 5080
  Austin, TX  United States  78763-5080

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Henk, Russell H
  • Songchitruksa, Praprut
  • Venglar, Steven
  • Lim, Gino
• Publication Date: 2011-8

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Edition: Technical Report
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 144p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Behavior; Contraflow lanes; Decision making; Disasters and emergency operations; Evacuation; Forecasting; Highway operations; Highway traffic; Hurricanes; Real time information
• Geographic Terms: Texas Gulf Coast
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Security and Emergencies; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01354087
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: FHWA/TX-11/0-6121-1, Report 0-6121-1
• Contract Numbers: Project 0-6121
• Files: TRIS, USDOT, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Oct 19 2011 12:53PM