A Decision Support Model to Understand Route Choice Decisions and Siting of Facilities in Emergency Evacuation

015162622013Final ReportPDFTech Report49111-22-22Decision support systemsRoute choiceEvacuationHurricanesTravel behaviorProbability theoryProbitsChoice modelsDemographicsResearch HubFreight MovementSupply chainBiomassDSSHighwaysOperations and Traffic ManagementSecurity and EmergenciesI72: Traffic and Transport PlanningUnited StatesUniversity Transportation Research CenterKamga, CamilleUkkusuri, Satish V.The City College of New York, CUNYPurdue UniversityUnited States. Dept. of Transportation. Research and Innovative Technology AdministrationUS Transportation CollectionIn this research, the authors present the results of a behavior model to capture different routing strategies executed by evacuees during hurricane evacuation by using a random-parameter logit-based modeling approach. This may be the first attempt to model evacuees' strategic behavior for evacuation routing decisions using a random-parameter model. A probabilistic model incorporating the demographic characteristics of evacuees and evacuation related characteristics would predict the routing behavior of evacuees' in a better way. Several important factors, for example, household's geographic location, number of children, evacuees' income and age, timing and medium of evacuation notice, etc. influence household's evacuation routing decision which are found from the empirical analysis. In addition, the authors explain the results of a behavior model to capture the timing behavior of evacuees which elapses from the time of an evacuation decision making to the time of actual evacuation during a hurricane by developing a random-parameter ordered probit model. This may be the first attempt to model evacuees' strategic behavior in terms of evacuation timing by developing a random-parameter ordered probit model. Different influential factors, such as, household's geographic location, socio-economic factors, evacuation related characteristics, trip time during normal condition, previous experience, etc. are found to be statistically significant which affect the time that is required by the evacuees for necessary arrangements during an evacuation