Simulation Study of Impacts of Evacuating on Enroute Metropolitan Highway Network

Duration: July '08 - June '09

In response to both natural and man-made disasters, emergency evacuation aims to move a large disaster affected population through a multimodal transportation network towards safe areas quickly and efficiently. The recent evacuation of New Orleans was a wakeup call for designing comprehensive evacuation plans to transfer citizens who do not have means of personal transportation in a multimodal network environment. The extremely long queues clogged along evacuation routes in the Houston evacuation event, on the other hand, highlights the need to provide a staggered evacuation plan and real-time traffic information to facilitate evacuees to make rational pre-trip decisions.

One of the challenges in pre-evacuation planning and post-evacuation response is how to accurately model the traffic congestion evolution, such as queue build-up, spillback and dissipation, in a dynamic and complex network after emergency events. DYNASMART-P is a new generation of traffic analysis tool developed under the FHWA DTA research project in support of traffic operations and planning decisions. To address the possible emergency evacuation needs, this research studies the feasibility of applying the new generation traffic-network planning model, DYNASMART-P, in developing and evaluating emergency evacuation strategies for the largest metropolitan area of Mississippi, the great Jackson area. DYNASMART-P version 1.0 and its input data editor, DSPEd, were released to the public through the McTrans Center in October 2004, followed by an updated DYNASMART-P version 1.3 released in Spring 2007. The FHWA continues to improve the software package in response to user needs, such as, computational efficiency, improved flow modeling, better path-finding algorithms, interfacing with demand models, and various GUI enhancements.

Project Objectives

The specific objectives of this study include:

1. Verify the feasibility of applying DYNASMART-P model to simulate traffic characteristics in both normal and congested road conditions for the urban transportation system in the great Jackson area;
a. Review state of the art literature and products of traffic simulation models that are capable of solving traffic problems of time-varying demands using static/dynamic traffic assignment methodologies;
b. Become familiar with DYNASMART-P model in an intensive learning process;
c. Model and calibrate the study transportation network using DYNASMART-P and routinely collected traffic volume, speed, and density data at specific locations, and zonal demands, and network mapping data available from state Department of Transportation (DOT) and state Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO).

2. Develop and evaluate emergency evacuation strategies for large scale evacuation of people under emergency conditions in the great Jackson metropolitan area in Mississippi.
a. Develop emergency scenarios for selected network and prepare data inputs for DYNASMART-P model;
b. Develop alternative traffic control (transportation operations) strategies such as lane closure, and contra-flow lanes for emergency evacuation;
c.Develop traffic information (intelligent transportation system) strategies such as by deploying dynamic message signs (DMS) and vehicle detectors to provide real-time traveler information for emergency evacuation;
d. Simulate and evaluate alternative strategies with DYNASMART-P;
e. Develop research findings and present in research report.

Final Report

• Simulation Study of Impacts of Evacuating on Enroute Metropolitan Highway Network

PI: Dr. Feng Wang
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Jackson State University