Citation

Hsu YT, Peeta S. Transp. Res. C Emerg. Technol. 2014; 48: 339-359.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.trc.2014.08.025

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The evacuation operations problem aims to avoid or mitigate the potential loss of life in a region threatened or affected by a disaster. It is shaped to a large extent by the evolution of evacuation traffic resulting from the demand-supply interactions of the associated transportation network. Information-based control is a strategic tool for evacuation traffic operations as it can enable greater access to the affected population and more effective response. However, comparatively few studies have focused on the implementation of information-based control in evacuation operations. This study develops a control module for evacuation operations centered on addressing the demand-supply interactions by using behavior-consistent information strategies. These strategies incorporate the likely responses of evacuees to the information provided in the determination of route guidance information. The control module works as an iterative computational process involving an evacuee route choice model and a control model of information strategies to determine the route guidance information to direct evacuation traffic so as to approach a desired network traffic flow pattern. The problem is formulated as a fuzzy logic based optimization framework to explicitly incorporate practical concerns related to information dissemination characteristics and social equity in evacuation operations. Numerical experiments highlight the importance of accounting for the demand-supply interactions, as the use of behavior-consistent information strategies can lead evacuee route choices to approach the operator-desired proportions corresponding to the desired traffic pattern. The results also indicate that while a behavior-consistent information strategy can be effective, gaps with the desired route proportions can exist due to the discrete nature of the linguistic messages and the real-world difficulty in accurately modeling evacuees' actual route choice behavior.