Citation

Alam MDJ, Habib MA. Transp. Res. D Trans. Environ. 2021; 97: e102946.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.trd.2021.102946

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study develops a novel framework to formalize the optimal utilization of all available modes of transportation, particularly transit and school buses for a mass evacuation. The study develops an "All-Mode Evacuation Decision Support Tool (AMEDST)" to determine an optimum auto-bus composition that yields an improvement in evacuation time and network congestion. The study follows a Knapsack optimization and adopts a solution algorithm called Dynamic Programming within a Python platform to optimally allocate buses to evacuees exposed to higher level of vulnerabilities. A traffic microsimulation model follows a dynamic traffic assignment process to simulate evacuation scenarios using all available modes.

RESULTS from the traffic simulation yield a vehicular traffic reduction of 3.9-7.7% and an evacuation time reduction of 9-22.7% if 5-20% of auto-based demand are served by buses. The tool will help emergency personnel evaluate alternative scenarios for making informed decisions regarding resource allocation and emergency budget policies for large-scale evacuations.

Language: en

Keywords

Dynamic programming; Dynamic traffic assignmnet; Evacuation; Evacuation time; Network performance; Optimization; Public transportation; Traffic congestion; Traffic simulaton