Download or read book Evaluation of Contraflow Lanes for Hurricane Evacuation written by Jason Collins and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ABSTRACT: This dissertation evaluates contraflow during a hurricane evacuation for grade separated highways. Contraflow is the concept of reversing the typical direction of highway travel to provide more outbound roadway capacity. The State of Florida has spent more time and resources towards the planning and the designing of potential contraflow facilities than any other state in the country; however, contraflow has yet to be implemented (as of Summer 2008). This study determines if the additional capacity benefits of contraflow outweigh the logistical requirements of implementing contraflow. Five different alternatives of contraflow lane configurations were comparatively evaluated. The format of this study is unique due to the evaluation of both capacity and logistical measurements. Each alternative was subject to evaluation of six different performance measures. The six different performance measures consisted of improved capacity, speed variation, logistics, required personnel, required infrastructure, and delay/congestion. Each performance measure was evaluated using a scaled scoring system. The alternative with the lowest average scoring among the different performance measures was considered the best alternative. Contraflow should only be considered as a last resort. The loss of inbound access, safety concerns, logistical requirements, and the additional strain of public resources during an evacuation are negative aspects that should be considered when determining the capacity benefit. If extenuating circumstances justify contraflow, then a full conversion of all inbound lanes to outbound lanes, known as Alternative D, should be considered. This alternative demonstrated the greatest capacity benefit while requiring the least amount of public resources. However, instead of contraflow, it is suggested to divert public resources towards other, more practical alternatives. Real time traffic monitoring has been demonstrated to be quite useful. Publicly accessed web-pages on the internet and the recent installation of variable message signs all provide improved notification of traffic conditions and of the capability to use alternative "atgrade" evacuation routes in addition to using the grade separated highways. This driver notification and the ability to ensure the safe and efficient travel on these alternative routes may be worth further investment, as well as being a potential topic of future research.

Download or read book Modeling Hurricane Evacuation Traffic written by Paul Brian Wolshon and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Evaluation of Different Contra flow Strategies for Hurricane Evacuation in Charleston South Carolina written by Liz Mary Stephen and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The number of category four and five hurricanes has nearly doubled over the past decade. Charleston, the second most populous city in South Carolina, is located on a very low peninsula, making it susceptible to floods during hurricanes and storm surges. In the event of a hurricane, the population at-risk must be evacuated to safety as quickly as possible. The Interstate system is the primary mode to evacuate at-risk population out of Charleston. Effective traffic management strategies are needed to manage the significant increase in demand on highways during the evacuation and contra-flowing traffic has been applied as a strategy to meet this need. This study evaluated the reduction in delay by proposing a new ramp and implementing different contra-flow strategies, along the I-26 corridor out of Charleston using a microscopic simulation tool called PARAMICS. This study found that the addition of a ramp along with contra-flow strategies significantly reduces traffic delay during an evacuation.

Download or read book Hurricane Evacuation Traffic Operations written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book An Operational Analysis of the Hampton Roads Hurricane Evacuation Traffic Control Plan written by Catherine C. McGhee and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hampton Roads region of Virginia has developed a hurricane evacuation plan to facilitate the movement of large numbers of vehicles as they attempt to leave the region in advance of a storm. Although the plan considers many aspects of hurricane evacuation, this evaluation focuses on its impacts on traffic operations. A traffic control plan (TCP) was developed that describes the procedures to be followed in the event an evacuation is ordered. Ramps providing access to I-64 are designated as open or closed, and many are metered in an attempt to influence the route choice of evacuees and thereby balance the demand across available evacuation routes. Although considerable work has gone into the development of the TCP, it has not been evaluated from a microscopic perspective to determine the performance characteristics with respect to traffic flow. This study provides that microscopic analysis for the freeway portions of the evacuation routes. The evaluation found that under less severe hurricane conditions (Category 1 or 2), the TCP performs reasonably well under the assumptions made in this study. The most significant assumption made was that all background traffic, including individuals evacuating their homes but remaining within the region, will not use the interstates during the evacuation period. Although background traffic will likely exist, there was insufficient information available in this phase of the study to assign background traffic to the network in any reasonably accurate manner. As the intensity of the hurricane intensifies to a Category 3 or 4, the TCP begins to be less effective. Ramp metering rates, designed in the TCP to ensure free-flowing conditions on the interstate mainlines, result in significant queues at the ramps and back onto the arterial network. Under Category 4 conditions, these queues would likely result in gridlock throughout the arterial network and lead evacuees to search out alternative routes, possibly negatively impacting the performance of those routes as well. The evaluation concludes that lane reversal is warranted under any storm predicted to make landfall as a Category 4 or higher and should be strongly considered for any Category 3. The study further finds that when lane reversal is implemented, the ramp metering rates should be significantly increased to reduce ramp queuing and allow more efficient use of available mainline capacity. The recommendations offered in this report will help to ensure an efficient evacuation of vehicles from the Hampton Roads region, should one be required. The revised ramp metering strategies and guidance on the use of lane reversal will help to maximize the available capacity provided by the interstate routes. Assumptions made throughout the study could render the results uncertain. Background traffic using the interstate routes could add to the congestion reported here. In addition, conditions outside the bounds of the network modeled in this project could negatively impact evacuating vehicles leaving Hampton Roads.

Download or read book Hurricane Evacuation Modeling written by Lei Fang (Engineer) and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hurricane evacuation has attracted renewed emphasis since hurricane Katrina in 2005. Every coastal state is establishing their evacuation guidelines and searching new methods to improve evacuations. In this dissertation, first, hurricane evacuation of the Hampton Roads region of Virginia is investigated using large-scale regional mesoscopic traffic simulation models. Fourteen evacuation scenarios consisting of various combinations of storm categories and traffic control strategies are evaluated. The evaluation of scenarios provided information on the clearance time, average travel times, bottleneck locations, and congestion durations. The major findings from scenario evaluations include: (1) The differences in participation rates (100% versus 70%) did not impact the clearance times in a Category 1 storm evacuation, but have significant impact in a Category 3 storm evacuation, (2) The status (open or close) of a critical tunnel crossing, the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel did not have impact on the evacuation performance in Category 1 and 2 storm. However, opening the tunnel would improve the performance in a Category 3 storm, (3) The clearance times derived from simulations can be used to determine when to issue evacuation orders for various storm intensities, and (4) The bottleneck locations and durations identified for each evacuation scenario can be used to allocate the limited traffic monitoring equipment during an evacuation. The second focus of this dissertation is to investigate the impact of assumptions made regarding evacuee route choice on evacuation performance estimates. In the hurricane evacuation literature, very few studies have documented the realistic route choice behavior of evacuees during a hurricane. Due to this lack of realistic route choice behavior data, modelers make assumptions about the route choice behavior and traffic assignment. User-equilibrium traffic assignment has been extensively used in past evacuation studies. In this dissertation, realistic route choice behavior was determined by evaluating findings of a few published studies. The impact of route choice behavior on evacuation performance, especially travel times, is then investigated using the regional simulation model of the Hampton Roads region. The analysis found that the user-equilibrium traffic assignment significantly underestimates the travel times during an evacuation. The extent of underestimation of evacuation travel times depends on the total evacuation demand (a function of storm intensity), and the percent of evacuees willing to use en-route information to seek alternate routes when facing congestion. For the three en-route percentages reported in the literature i.e., 30%, 50%, and 70%, the UE travel times were 58%, 42%, and 33% lower than actual travel times realized in a Category 1; 94%, 71%, and 57% lower in a Category 2; and 90%, 69%, and 54% lower in a Category 3 evacuation. These findings illustrate the need to collect real-world data on evacuee route choice in order to build accurate evacuation models. The third focus of dissertation is to propose a procedure to assess the benefit of adding additional intermediate crossovers on a contra flow facility. Contra flow operation in which the direction of traffic on one or more travel lanes is reversed in order to increase the capacity of a road network is becoming a critical component of the evacuation plans of coastal states. Several coastal states have a contra flow plan in place for evacuation, however only a few states have intermediate crossovers between the origin and termination points. The impact of intermediate crossovers on network performance has not been well investigated in previous research. This dissertation investigates the benefits of having intermediate crossovers between regular and contra flow lanes. Based on the investigation, it can be concluded that adding intermediate crossovers did improve network performance for medium and high evacuation demand situations. Adding intermediate crossovers for low demand situations did not improve the network performance and thus any considerations for intermediate crossovers for the low demand evacuations must be based solely on providing access to road-side services (gas, food, and others). For high and medium demand situations and for the road network studied in this section, a 28% improvement in the average travel time was observed by deploying four intermediate crossovers out of the 44 potential crossover locations. The iterative elimination procedure proposed in this dissertation is the first attempt in the literature to provide a systematic approach to determine the critical intermediate crossover locations within reasonable computation times.

Download or read book Large Scale Evacuation written by Michael K. Lindell and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Large-Scale Evacuation introduces the reader to the steps involved in evacuation modelling for towns and cities, from understanding the hazards that can require large-scale evacuations, through understanding how local officials decide to issue evacuation advisories and households decide whether to comply, to transportation simulation and traffic management strategies. The author team has been recognized internationally for their research and consulting experience in the field of evacuations. Collectively, they have 125 years of experience in evacuation, including more than 140 projects for federal and state agencies. The text explains how to model evacuations that use the road transportation network by combining perspectives from social scientists and transportation engineers, fields that have commonly approached evacuation modelling from distinctly different perspectives. In doing so, it offers a step-by-step guide through the key questions needed to model an evacuation and its impacts to the evacuation route system as well as evacuation management strategies for influencing demand and expanding capacity. The authors also demonstrate how to simulate the resulting traffic and evacuation management strategies that can be used to facilitate evacuee movement and reduce unnecessary demand. Case studies, which identify key points to analyze in an evacuation plan, discuss evacuation termination and re-entry, and highlight challenges that someone developing an evacuation plan or model should expect, are also included. This textbook will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, and advanced students.

Download or read book Study of Contraflow Operations for Hurricane Evacuation written by Michael Magdy Rizk Shinouda and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 93 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Development of a Dynamic Traffic Assignment Model to Evaluate Lane reversal Plans for I 65 written by Virginia P. Sisiopiku and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 57 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This report presents the methodology and results from a project that studied contra-flow operations in support of hurricane evacuations in the state of Alabama. As part of this effort, a simulation model was developed using the VISTA platform for I-65 from the Alabama Gulf Coast region to Montgomery, AL and alternative evacuation routes. The model was used to test the current lane-reversal plan under a variety of evacuation scenarios and assess the potential impacts of modifications to this plan. Special attention was given to the development of realistic evacuation demand profiles to account for user preferences and seasonal (tourist) demand. The report discusses traffic and evacuation plan requirements and acquisition, model development and calibration approach, evacuation scenarios considered and results from the systems analyses and scenarios evaluation. Moreover, it highlights some of the challenges in the development of large scale mesoscopic model for evacuation analyses. A summary of recommendations is also included that can be used to improve current practices and assist future traffic management under evacuation conditions."--Technical report documentation page.

Download or read book Catastrophic Hurricane Evacuation Plan Evaluation written by D. Federal Highway Administration (Fhwa) and published by . This book was released on 2015-02-15 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Download or read book Catastrophic Hurricane Evacuation Plan Evaluation a Report to Congress written by United States. Department of Transportation and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Simulation and Analysis of Freeway Lane Reversal for Coastal Hurricane Evacuation written by Billy M. Williams and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Hurricane Evacuation written by Vinayak V. Dixit and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Modeling Lane based Traffic Flow in Emergency Situations in the Presence of Multiple Heterogeneous Flows written by Amani A. Saleh and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, natural, man-made and technological disasters have been increasing in magnitude and frequency of occurrence. Terrorist attacks have increased after the September 11, 2001. Some authorities suggest that global warming is partly the blame for the increase in frequency of natural disasters, such as the series of hurricanes in the early-2000's. Furthermore, there has been noticeable growth in population within many metropolitan areas not only in the US but also worldwide. These and other facts motivate the need for better emergency evacuation route planning (EERP) approaches in order to minimize the loss of human lives and property. This research considers aspects of evacuation routing never before considered in research and, more importantly, in practice. Previous EERP models only either consider unidirectional evacuee flow from the source of a hazard to destinations of safety or unidirectional emergency first responder flow to the hazard source. However, in real-life emergency situations, these heterogeneous, incompatible flows occur simultaneously over a bi-directional capacitated lane-based travel network, especially in unanticipated emergencies. By incompatible, it is meant that the two different flows cannot occupy a given lane and merge or crossing point in the travel network at the same time. In addition, in large-scale evacuations, travel lane normal flow directions can be reversed dynamically to their contraflow directions depending upon the degree of the emergency. These characteristics provide the basis for this investigation. This research considers the multiple flow EERP problem where the network travel lanes can be reconfigured using contraflow lane reversals. The first flow is vehicular flow of evacuees from the source of a hazard to destinations of safety, and the second flow is the emergency first responders to the hazard source. After presenting a review of the work related to the multiple flow EERP problem, mathematical formulations are proposed for three variations of the EERP problem where the objective for each problem is to identify an evacuation plan (i.e., a flow schedule and network contraflow lane configuration) that minimizes network clearance time. Before the proposed formulations, the evacuation problem that considers only the flow of evacuees out of the network, which is viewed as a maximum flow problem, is formulated as an integer linear program. Then, the first proposed model formulation, which addresses the problem that considers the flow of evacuees under contraflow conditions, is presented. Next, the proposed formulation is expanded to consider the flow of evacuees and responders through the network but under normal flow conditions. Lastly, the two-flow problem of evacuees and responders under contraflow conditions is formulated. Using real-world population and travel network data, the EERP problems are each solved to optimality; however, the time required to solve the problems increases exponentially as the problem grows in size and complexity. Due to the intractable nature of the problems as the size of the network increases, a genetic-based heuristic solution procedure that generates evacuation network configurations of reasonable quality is proposed. The proposed heuristic solution approach generates evacuation plans in the order of minutes, which is desirable in emergency situations and needed to allow for immediate evacuation routing plan dissemination and implementation in the targeted areas.

Download or read book To Stay Or Leave written by Kirstin Dow and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Eastern Pleasure Island Hurricane Evacuation Route Lower Baldwin County Evacuation Route Baldwin County written by and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Transportation Disadvantage Populations Actions Needed to Clarify Responsibilities Increase Preparedness for Evacuations written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: