approaches (2, 3). Quantitative studies on evacuation planning have used static analysis or macro-and mesoscopic simulation modeling (4-8). The applicability of these papers and approaches to a real-life evacuation scenario is limited, with the exception of the approach adopted by Franzese and Han (7), who present an overall simulationbased framework for evacuation scenarios. However, they have adopted a mesoscopic simulation model in their overall framework. It will be evident from this paper that traffic operations under an evacuation scenario present a large number of situations for which this paper does not have analytical solutions. Hence, a microscopic modeling is warranted to evaluate evacuation time, bottleneck locations, and population at risk.
OBJECTIVELos Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), located in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico, covers an area of about 50 mi 2 . LANL houses almost 15,000 employees and accommodates almost 9,400 vehicles. The site is divided into several subregions called technical areas (TAs). The major percentage of the population works within TA-3, situated on the northwest corner of the laboratory. LANL has already developed emergency plans for evacuating individual buildings. However, there has not been an evaluation, at a microscopic level, of traffic operations during a LANL sitewide evacuation. This paper describes the development of, and results from, the MITSIMLab model for evaluation of emergency evacuation plans for LANL.Input from LANL Emergency Management and Response, at the start of this project, indicated that evacuation of the laboratory historically has required 2 1 /2 to 3 h. The LANL Facility and Waste Operations Lessons Learned Task Force evaluated the emergency evacuation during the Cerro Grande Fire and emphasized the need for evaluating a sitewide evacuation plan. Traffic operations are arguably the most critical component of an evacuation plan. The traffic modeling was needed to meet the following objectives:• Evaluate the impact of various unforeseen events such as closure of a bridge, access to a particular site in the lab, limited access to some facilities, and other similar specific conditions;• Identify bottlenecks for each scenario;• Determine if delayed release of TAs would decrease evacuation time;• Evaluate the impact of various capacity-improvement options,including the addition of a new road; and • Develop guidelines for evacuation route planning.To realize these objectives and determine the overall efficiency of an evacuation plan, the most critical traffic variables were defined as follows: A microscopic simulation model (MITSIMLab) for evaluating emergency evacuation plans was developed for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). MITSIMLab was used as the microscopic traffic simulator to model traffic operations. The study area consisted of the entire region that includes all technical areas within the LANL and the towns of White Rock and Los Alamos, New Mexico. Evacuation planning is a critical component of overall security planning. The ...