Review of Policies and Practices for Hurricane Evacuation. II: Traffic Operations, Management, and Control

Enhancing Capacity for Emergency Evacuation through Resource Matching and Coordinated Volunteerism

“…Furthermore, labor laws may limit the number of hours a vehicle driver can work without rest, inciting a need for replacement drivers. While public transit providers of many large cities do not possess enough buses to evacuate all those who cannot self-evacuate in a timely manner, let alone all residents [61], if a jurisdiction overcame the aforementioned obstacles, public transit could prove an invaluable resource during an evacuation Military personnel and equipment could be used to evacuate those either unwilling or incapable of evacuating themselves from an affected area, conduct search and rescue missions, and provide essential needs (e.g., food, water, medicine) to victims. The military can be activated by the elected official of an affected nation or jurisdiction to provide disaster relief to impacted areas, which could entail transportation support for evacuation [61].…”

“…While public transit providers of many large cities do not possess enough buses to evacuate all those who cannot self-evacuate in a timely manner, let alone all residents [61], if a jurisdiction overcame the aforementioned obstacles, public transit could prove an invaluable resource during an evacuation Military personnel and equipment could be used to evacuate those either unwilling or incapable of evacuating themselves from an affected area, conduct search and rescue missions, and provide essential needs (e.g., food, water, medicine) to victims. The military can be activated by the elected official of an affected nation or jurisdiction to provide disaster relief to impacted areas, which could entail transportation support for evacuation [61]. Considering the amount of devastation an impacted area would likely have sustained in order for an executive branch of government or other properly appointed agency to request support from the military, using the military for providing disaster response transportation could possibly intensify the inherent chaos in transportation following a disaster by further congesting traffic [50].…”

“…Some community-based efforts, such as the "Good Samaritan" and "Evacuteer" programs in New Orleans, Louisiana, encourage evacuees to provide transportation to neighbors who lack means of self-evacuating [13,51,61]. In practice however, many carless individuals are still unable or unwilling to comply with orders to evacuate when disaster strikes [6,10,12].…”

“…In practice however, many carless individuals are still unable or unwilling to comply with orders to evacuate when disaster strikes [6,10,12]. When helpful neighbors with vehicular access or programs like "Evacuteer" are not an option, many individuals are forced to assume the risks of sheltering in place during a disaster [61].…”

Proactive Control for Oversaturation Mitigation on Evacuation Network: a Multi-Agent Simulation Approach

“…It is believed by traffic managers that improving evacuation efficiency of traffic network is a way to reduce the loss in emergency events. Therefore, the transportation agencies tried various measures such as signal control, contraflow lane reversal, information control, and intersection crossing elimination to speed up the clearance of network traffic surrounding emergency sites in the past years (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7).…”