Transport models and intelligent transportation system to support urban evacuation planning process

Abstract

This study focuses on risk management and specifically the exposure component. The exposure may be reduced by means of evacuation. This measure allows people and goods to be rescued from the area where the calamitous effects are announced. In the past years, many models have been proposed to simulate and design transport system under evacuation conditions. It must be underlined that the models applied to ordinary conditions cannot be directly applied to evacuation conditions due to very strong differences in demand, supply and interaction. Other models have been developed for emergency conditions. Nevertheless they consider only specific aspects and do not provide a comprehensive framework. This study presents the main quantitative results of a long-lasting research project for which a unifying approach for the simulation and design of a transportation system under evacuation conditions is adopted. In this project, an intelligent transportation system (ITS) is implemented to monitor real evacuation tests in a town where an emergency event has been simulated and experimented. In this study, a general methodology is reported with the description of the main models and procedures. Models are calibrated and validated by means of observed data obtained from ITS.