Traveling for Safety: Price and Income Elasticities of Hurricane Evacuation Behavior

Abstract

Using multiple hurricane surveys collected from different areas in the U.S., this study estimates how much distance and how much time were traveled by evacuees to reach safer destinations during a hurricane event. Regression results indicate that flood risk, respondents’ age, income, and education levels are correlated with both the distance and travel time of hurricane evacuation trips. Moreover, to gain deeper insights, we estimated the price and income elasticities of hurricane evacuation trip characteristics. The estimated elasticities of travel distance reveal that travel distance is a necessary and ordinary good, implying that safety is essential and less responsive to price changes. In addition, the estimated elasticities of travel time suggest that travel time is an inferior good, indicating that as income goes up, people tend to spend less time traveling for evacuation. This finding provides logistic implications for emergency management agencies to analyze the evacuation travel demand and ensure safety in vulnerable communities.