Simulation Study of Impacts of Evacuating Traffic on En-route Metropolitan Highway Network

In response to both natural and man-made disasters, more and more emergency evacuation plans have been put forward and consistently aim to move a large disaster affected population through a multimodal transportation network towards safer areas as quickly and efficiently as possible. The objectives of this paper are 1) to verify the feasibility of applying the DYNASMART-P model to simulation of traffic characteristics in both normal and emergency conditions for the urban transportation system in the Greater Jackson metropolitan area in Mississippi and 2) to develop and evaluate emergency evacuation strategies for a large scale evacuation of people under emergency conditions in the Greater Jackson area. In this paper, the traffic network including the counties of Hinds, Madison and Rankin was built through the mesoscopic traffic-network planning and simulation model DYNASMART-P based on the dynamic traffic assignment methodology. The model was applied to a highway network on the route of the evacuation. The background origin-destination (OD) demand as input for the simulation program was calibrated using observed traffic volume data collected in several critical routes of evacuation. An evacuation scenario was designed to study the impacts of the evacuating traffic from southeastern Louisiana to the Greater Jackson Metropolitan Area of Mississippi due to an assumed approaching hurricane disaster. Critically congested freeway segments under two evacuation intensity levels were identified based on the criterion of the average queue length percentage and level of service. The causes for the congestion of roads were analyzed and explained.

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  • Supplemental Notes:
    • This research was supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
  • Corporate Authors:

    Jackson State University

    Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, P.O. Box 17068
    Jackson, MS  United States  39217-0168

    Jackson State University

    Institute for Multimodal Transportation, 1230 Raymond Road, Box 900
    Jackson, MS  United States  39204

    Research and Innovative Technology Administration

    1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
    Washington, DC  United States  20590
  • Authors:
    • Wang, Feng
    • Li, Chao
    • Zhou, Xuesong
    • Chen, Xiaoming
    • Stokes Jr, Charles E
    • Li, Andrew
    • Bulti, Samson
  • Publication Date: 2009-8-31

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Web
  • Edition: Final Report
  • Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 54p

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01143756
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Files: UTC, NTL, TRIS, USDOT
  • Created Date: Nov 6 2009 4:24PM