Download or read book Examining the Use of a Contraflow Evacuation Method for Tropical Cyclone Evacuations in Nueces County Texas written by Adam Clark and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Millions of residents along the United States Gulf Coast live with the threat of tropical cyclones. These potentially devastating storms, more commonly referred to as hurricanes in the North Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and in the eastern or central North Pacific Ocean east of the International Dateline, bring damaging winds, heavy rains, severe flooding, and powerful storm surges that can quickly devastate any area in their path. Due to the dangers of these storms, coastal areas create evacuation plans that allow area residents to safely leave the city before they are impacted. This study examined a contraflow evacuation plan for Corpus Christi, Texas in an attempt to model what a major tropical cyclone evacuation might look like for this region. Using ArcGIS, several potential evacuation routes were created in Nueces County, Texas to simulate an evacuation under "optimal"+ "expected," and "worst case" scenarios. Results of this study show that while a contraflow evacuation plan has the potential to cause severe traffic congestions and extremely long evacuation times, under both "optimal" and "expected" conditions it serves as an effective evacuation method out of the city.

Download or read book Natural Hazards written by Ehsan Noroozinejad Farsangi and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2021-06-30 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Natural Hazards - Impacts, Adjustments, and Resilience is a collection of chapters on recent developments as well as problems of current interest in the field of natural hazards by academicians, researchers, and practicing engineers from all over the world. It includes seventeen chapters and encompasses multidisciplinary areas within the areas of natural hazards such as resilience, reliability, crisis management, risk analysis, and simulations. This book is a useful reference for undergraduate and postgraduate students, academicians, and researchers across a variety of engineering disciplines as well as practicing engineers.

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 Federal Evacuation Policy written by Bruce R. Lindsay and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2010-10 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When government officials become aware of an impending disaster, they may take steps to protect citizens before the incident occurs. Evacuation of the geographic area that may be affected is one option to ensure public safety. If implemented properly, evacuation can be an effective strategy for saving lives. Decisions to evacuate may require officials to balance potentially costly, hazardous, or unnecessary evacuations against the possibility of loss of life due to a delayed order to evacuate. Contents: (1) Intro.; (2) Examples of Fed. Evacuation Policy; (3) Evacuations: Lessons Learned from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita; (4) Congressional Issues; (5) Pending Legislation in the 111th Congress. Appendix: Statutory Authority for Evacuations. Illus.

Download or read book Texas Hurricane Evacuation Study written by Texas Transportation Institute and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

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 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 Category 5 Hurricane Evacuation Analysis of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas written by Bart Webb and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis evaluates the capability of evacuating the Rio Grande Valley of Texas (Hidalgo, Willacy, and Cameron Counties) in the event of a Category 5 hurricane.

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 The Effect of Shadow Evacuation in Megaregion Disasters written by Paul Brian Wolshon and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transportation systems serve important roles during emergencies, in particular for evacuations. However, efficient travel during these life-and-death scenarios can be adversely impacted by external conditions, such as unnecessary and unneeded travel. This research sought to enhance the understanding of the effects of these conditions by analyzing shadow evacuations, and their impact on regional traffic operations in megaregions, more broadly. The research was based on simulations of a range of hurricane evacuation threat scenarios in the Gulf of Mexico building upon prior study using TRANSIMS. These assessments are also targeted at what many assume could be worst-case evacuation conditions and pushing the limits of current simulation modeling capability. Among the broader findings of this work was that shadow evacuation participation rates did not significantly impact the evacuation clearance times within mandatory evacuation areas of the megaregion as long as demand could be temporarily spread out. This finding does not, however, suggest that the shadow evacuations have no impact on evacuation processes. High rates of shadow evacuees can cause significant congestion if they are not able to exit critical routes before mandatory evacuees reach areas further away from the coast.

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 Governor s Hurricane Evacuation Task Force Report written by Florida. Governor's Hurricane Evacuation Task Force and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Federal Evacuation Policy written by Bruce R. Lindsay and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

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 Capturing Pre evacuation Trips and Associative Delays written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The time it takes for the residents to evacuate an area is calculated as an evacuation time estimate (ETE). In theory, these time estimates are calculated based on a number of inputs, including clearance time, the impact of traffic management techniques, and the time for the public to prepare to evacuate (Dow, 2000). Evacuation models can calculate clearance times, as well as incorporate the temporal impact of traffic management techniques, like contra-flow traffic. However, these models do not include delays associated with pre-evacuation trips. Because these trips are not well represented in hurricane evacuation models, the evacuation time estimate may be miscalculated (Wilmot and Mei, 2004). In order to capture pre-evacuation trip behavior, an online survey of residents' responses to the evacuation order associated with Hurricane Wilma in 2005 was conducted. Survey data gathered from the residents of Key West, Florida indicate seven important aspects of preevacuation trip making behavior: (1) Socio-demographic variables, which have some association with evacuation behavior, were found to have a very weak to no association with pre-evacuation trip-making; (2) Socio-demographic variables were found to have an association with predicting evacuation behavior for respondents making pre-evacuation trips, and these associations are consistent to what has been found in other studies of evacuation behavior; (3) Delays at stops are longer than delays on links; (4) Trip delays are associated with trip purpose; (5) Residents did not travel from a single origin point directly to an evacuation point, but made various preevacuation trips, often exhibiting trip chaining that included traveling toward as well as away from the city; (6) Though the Key West mandatory evacuation for Hurricane Wilma consisted of a phased evacuation based on housing types, the residents did not evacuate based on housing type, and (7) the personal stories offered by respondents indicate that evacuating or not is often related to job requirements, economic opportunity, previous evacuation experience, and evacuation burnout.

Download or read book Modeling Decision Making Related to Incident Delays During Hurricane Evacuations written by Robert Michael Robinson and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Prototype Design for a Predictive Model to Improve Evacuation Operations written by Russell H. Henk and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: