Responding to the Unexpected: Development of a Dynamic Data Driven Traffic Operation Model for Effective Evacuation
Principal Investigator:
Henry Liu, Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering
Project Summary:
This research is responding to the current needs for innovative evacuation operation strategies and for evaluation of current evacuation planning models with advanced traffic models. The goal of this project is to advance the current state-of-the-art evacuation modeling from the planning stage to real-time and dynamic-operation stages by developing a suite of conceptual, analytical, and simulation models that are expected to function as real-time online tools for evacuation traffic management. Recent natural and man-made disasters around the world have demonstrated the need for effective evacuation traffic management to maximize use of the transportation system. To "squeeze" the spare capacity out of the current traffic network system and fully utilize the available network capacity within the evacuation time window, the researchers propose to develop a system optimal model that can generate time-dependent evacuation routes and intersection control strategies to minimize the total evacuation time. The computer model should take dynamic inputs such as road closures into consideration and must be able to generate solutions quickly. The transportation network of downtown Minneapolis is used in the model for testing purposes. The research team has developed the analytical model that can provide the above functionalities and is coding the theoretical model into computer software, which will provide a user-friendly graphical interface.
Sponsors:
- Minnesota Department of Transportation
Project Details:
- Start date: 09/2006
- Project Status: Active
- Research Area: Transportation Safety and Traffic Flow