Examining the Effect of Multiple Route Choice Criteria on Hurricane Evacuation Traffic Through External Validation of Simulations

Hurricane evacuations can be a chaotic experience for individuals involved, but researchers have attempted to find patterns in the routes people take. One paper laid out a model for predicting route choice based upon features that are different than standard route choice influencers. This thesis attempted to evaluate the accuracy of that model by using TransModeler modeling software. Using the building blocks of the HEMP project, this project compared the new model to the standard model and evaluated the two based upon the ability to reproduce real-world results. Interestingly, the two did not come out significantly different possibly because the effect size of the increased accuracy of the new model was not large enough to be measured partially because the southeastern Louisiana road network does not provide ample alternatives to elucidate the difference