Optimal Transit Routing Problem for Emergency Evacuations

A stochastic optimal modeling technique is developed to generate an evacuation plan for transit-dependent residents in the event of natural disaster such as the hurricane. The transit evacuation operation is converted to a multi-stage location-routing problem (LRP) with uncertain demands. The objective considered here is to minimize the total evacuation time. The multi-stage LRP problem identifies the optimal serving areas and transit vehicle routings to move evacuees from the affected zone to designated shelters or safe destinations at different time stage. The authors present the computational experience on the application of hybrid genetic algorithms, artificial neural network and hill climbing heuristic algorithms. Two evacuation strategies as single stage and two-stage transit routing plan have been analyzed based on the survey data from Gulfport, MS, to illustrate the proposed modeling technique. Experimental results show that the two-stage transit routing plan is more effective than single-stage to ensure the evacuation plan be carried out accurately and efficiently.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • He, Shiwei
  • Zhang, Li
  • Song, Rui
  • Wen, Yi
  • Wu, Di
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2009-1-11 to 2009-1-15
• Date: 2009

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: Figures; Maps; References;
• Pagination: 13p
• Monograph Title: TRB 88th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Disaster preparedness; Disasters and emergency operations; Emergency transportation; Evacuation; Hurricanes; Public transit; Routes and routing; Systems analysis; Transit operating agencies
• Uncontrolled Terms: Location-routing problem
• Geographic Terms: Gulfport (Mississippi)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Security and Emergencies; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01128717
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 09-0931
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 19 2009 7:48AM