Modeling Disaster Operations from an Interdisciplinary Perspective in the New York-New Jersey Area

The objective of this research is to develop a systematic methodology to understand overall demand, destination type choice, and route choice decisions in the aftermath of a hurricane. It will consider both transportation and social and other relevant factors such as actions of agencies dealing with emergency operations. Original data from past hurricanes will be used to estimate and calibrate the models, as well as new traffic data from Hurricane Irene in 2011. This research is focused on the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area, and will utilize available data sources in this area to conduct the proposed work. The research team proposes a data-driven research approach that will "piggy-back" on newly available social media and other electronic data, in addition to survey data. Major steps of our research methodology are: (1) Review literature related to hurricane demand with a focus on the choices of individuals in terms of departure time, destination, and mode. (2) Identify the effects of previous evacuation experience and familiarity with the transportation system, in addition to other more commonly used factors such as socio-economic and demographic characteristics of evacuees. (3) Identify data sources, especially rare data such as traffic data from recent hurricanes, which can be used to capture the impact of traditional and nontraditional factors on complex evacuee behavior. (4) Acquire data and estimate "agent based models" that can capture individual level interactions and homogeneities in the presence of rare yet catastrophic event of hurricanes. (5) Compare the prediction of this new model with more traditional models of hurricane demand prediction. This is the first model of its type found in hurricane evacuation modeling literature as such it is expected to have a high impact.

• Record URL:
  http://www.utrc2.org/research/projects/modeling-disaster-operations-interdisciplinary-perspective

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $166200.00
• Contract Numbers:

  49997-61-24

  49997-45-24

• Sponsor Organizations:

  University Transportation Research Center

  City College of New York
  Marshak Hall, Suite 910, 160 Convent Avenue
  New York, NY  United States  10031
• Project Managers:

  Eickemeyer, Penny

• Performing Organizations:

  Rutgers University, New Brunswick

  Center for Urban Policy Research
  33 Livingston Avenue
  New Brunswick, NJ  United States  08901-1982
• Principal Investigators:

  Ukkusuri, Satish

  Ozbay, Kaan

• Start Date: 20121101
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20151231
• Source Data: RiP Project 33076

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Disaster preparedness; Disasters and emergency operations; Evacuation; Hurricanes; Interdisciplinary studies; Mode choice; Route choice; Traffic data
• Identifier Terms: Hurricane Irene, 2011
• Uncontrolled Terms: Agent based models
• Geographic Terms: New Jersey; New York (New York)
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Planning and Forecasting; Security and Emergencies;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01566476
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: University Transportation Research Center
• Contract Numbers: 49997-61-24, 49997-45-24
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Jun 16 2015 1:00AM