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 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 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 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 Transportation s Role in Emergency Evacuation and Reentry written by Paul Brian Wolshon and published by Transportation Research Board. This book was released on 2009 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 392: Transportation's Role in Emergency Evacuation and Reentry explores information on transportation's role in emergency evacuation and reentry by summarizing aspects of its planning, control, and research as well as highlighting effective and innovative practices"--Publisher's description.

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 Traffic Analysis and Operational Measures written by Douglas P. Zaragoza and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 394 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 Encyclopedia of GIS written by Shashi Shekhar and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-12-12 with total page 1392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia of GIS provides a comprehensive and authoritative guide, contributed by experts and peer-reviewed for accuracy, and alphabetically arranged for convenient access. The entries explain key software and processes used by geographers and computational scientists. Major overviews are provided for nearly 200 topics: Geoinformatics, Spatial Cognition, and Location-Based Services and more. Shorter entries define specific terms and concepts. The reference will be published as a print volume with abundant black and white art, and simultaneously as an XML online reference with hyperlinked citations, cross-references, four-color art, links to web-based maps, and other interactive features.

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 Analysis and Modeling of Cape May County Roadway Elevations and Evacuation Routes written by I-Jy Steven Chien and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Modeling Hurricane Evacuation Traffic written by Haoqiang Fu and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Little attention has been given to estimating dynamic travel demand in transportation planning in the past. However, when factors influencing travel are changing significantly over time - such as with an approaching hurricane - dynamic demand and the resulting variation in traffic flow on the network become important. In this study, dynamic travel demand models for hurricane evacuation were developed with two methodologies: survival analysis and sequential choice model. Using survival analysis, the time before evacuation from a pending hurricane is modeled with those that do not evacuate considered as censored observations. A Cox proportional hazards regression model with time-dependent variables and a Piecewise Exponential model were estimated. In the sequential choice model, the decision to evacuate in the face of an oncoming hurricane is considered as a series of binary choices over time. A sequential logit model and a sequential complementary log-log model were developed. Each model is capable of predicting the probability of a household evacuating at each time period before hurricane landfall as a function of the household's socio-economic characteristics, the characteristics of the hurricane (such as distance to the storm), and policy decisions (such as the issuing of evacuation orders). Three datasets were used in this study. They were data from southwest Louisiana collected following Hurricane Andrew, data from South Carolina collected following Hurricane Floyd, and stated preference survey data collected from the New Orleans area. Based on the analysis, the sequential logit model was found to be the best alternative for modeling dynamic travel demand for hurricane evacuation. The sequential logit model produces predictions which are superior to those of the current evacuation participation rate models with response curves. Transfer of the sequential logit model estimated on the Floyd data to the Andrew data demonstrated that the sequential logit model is capable of estimating dynamic travel demand in a different environment than the one in which it was estimated with reasonable accuracy. However, more study is required on the transferability of models of this type, as well as the development of procedures that would allow the updating of transferred model parameters to better reflect local evacuation behavior.

Download or read book Management of Federal Assistance to States and Communities for Hurricane Evacuation Preparedness written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Government Operations. Legislation and National Security Subcommittee and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Advances in Hurricane Research written by Kieran Hickey and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2012-12-05 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a wealth of new information, ideas and analysis on some of the key unknowns in hurricane research. Topics covered include the numerical prediction systems for tropical cyclone development, the use of remote sensing methods for tropical cyclone development, a parametric surface wind model for tropical cyclones, a micrometeorological analysis of the wind as a hurricane passes over Houston, USA, the meteorological passage of numerous tropical cyclones as they pass over the South China Sea, simulation modelling of evacuations by motorised vehicles in Alabama, the influence of high stream-flow events on nutrient flows in the post hurricane period, a reviews of the medical needs, both physical and psychological of children in a post hurricane scenario and finally the impact of two hurricanes on Ireland. Hurricanes discussed in the various chapters include Katrina, Ike, Isidore, Humberto, Debbie and Charley and many others in the North Atlantic as well as numerous tropical cyclones in the South China Sea.

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 Recommended Practices for Hurricane Evacuation Traffic Operations written by Andrew J. Ballard and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: