Effects of Hurricane Irene and Sandy in New Jersey: Evacuation Traffic Patterns

This study analyzes temporal and spatial evacuation traffic patterns based on traffic data collected during Hurricanes Irene and Sandy in New Jersey. The temporal analysis shows that the total number of evacuees in Sandy was less than 30 percent of those in Irene. This is probably caused by the late-summer season, differences in background traffic, as well as so called "crying wolf" effect. However, similar to the evacuation departure behavior during Hurricane Irene, people who evacuated during Hurricane Sandy responded very quickly to the mandatory evacuation order. Traffic volumes increased significantly when the official mandatory evacuation order was issued. The spatial analysis shows that the most significant evacuation movements were located in the southern region of the state, closest to the shore area. The vast majority of this evacuation traffic moved westward, instead of traveling northbound along the area made vulnerable by the storm. These evacuation traffic patterns are similar to the typical outbound traffic patterns seen in the shore areas at the end of a summer weekend but with departure times that were three to four hours earlier than usual. Moreover, in examining the evacuation traffic patterns and collected travel time data, this study was also able to identify traffic bottlenecks that arose during Hurricane Irene and Sandy evacuations. The results show that the bottlenecks were generally at merging areas in the vicinity of on/off ramps or interchanges. These empirical observations can be used to improve real-world emergency response operations and evacuation models.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB80T Emergency Evacuation. Alternate title: Effects of Hurricanes Irene and Sandy in New Jersey: Evacuation Traffic Patterns.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Li, Jian
  • Ozbay, Kaan
  • Bartin, Bekir
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC
  • Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
• Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 19p
• Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bottlenecks; Evacuation; Hurricanes; Traffic data; Travel patterns; Travel time
• Identifier Terms: Hurricane Irene, 2011; Hurricane Sandy, 2012
• Geographic Terms: New Jersey
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Security and Emergencies; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01506488
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-3888
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 4 2014 9:13AM