Robustness of Transportation Networks under Megaregion Evacuations

Evacuations, the movement of people from locations of imminent or potential danger to locations of safety, are a key element to protect the health and safety of the public in the event of disasters. Different factors related to the evacuation process could affect how fast an at-risk area is evacuated. These include overall demand, departure time, driving behavior, weather conditions, etc. However, the characteristics of the at-risk area (and the surrounding areas) could also have a significant impact. The most obvious of these is the available network capacity. Additional factors such as network topology and population density can also be associated to network performance. Therefore, this research will identify and investigate possible associations between network performance with the network characteristics (e.g. available capacity, network topology), and surges of demand such as that observed in an evacuation. Traffic simulation will be used to assess different scenarios using a small network for proof-of-concept and later scaled to megaregions. Based on the analysis, a network robustness measure will be developed with consideration of all the above mentioned characteristics. In addition, this research will investigate applications of the robustness measure in CAV environments.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $64470
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747135

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Stearns, Amy

• Performing Organizations:

  Cooperative Mobility for Competitive Megaregions (CM2)

  University of Texas at Austin
  Austin, TX  United States  78712
• Principal Investigators:

  Wolshon, Brian

• Start Date: 20180801
• Expected Completion Date: 20190930
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Disaster preparedness; Evacuation; Network analysis (Planning); Regional analysis; Traffic simulation
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Security and Emergencies; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01674193
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Cooperative Mobility for Competitive Megaregions (CM2)
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747135
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Jun 29 2018 3:23PM