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TRANSPORTATION
ANALYSIS
This is contract work being |
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 BACKGROUND
Hurricane Floyd skirted the East Coast of the
United States as a strong Category 4 hurricane and making landfall in North
Carolina as a 2-3 category storm. The threat of the storm resulted in the
evacuation of over 3 million people, which is the largest evacuation in
U.S. history. The massive numbers of evacuees filled evacuation routes
and caused long delays, which exposed many evacuees to personal risk and
created great dissatisfaction and concern on the part of both private citizens
and government officials.
STUDY OBJECTIVE: The main
objective of this study is to determine the nature and causes of the transportation
problems encountered during the evacuation and develop specific recommendations
and tools to assist the emergency management community to reduce or eliminate
them in the future.
STUDY TASK SUMMARY - The following is a summary list of study tasks: 1. To collect evacuee data and evacuation The contractor will review all FEMA/Corps and RPC hurricane evacuation studies that have been made throughout the region. This review will collect all pertinent data on evacuation routes and capacities, population and dwelling unit data, evacuation zones and statistics for each zone, evacuee response data, and shelter data for each coastal county in the region. The contractor will coordinate with States and Highway departments to bring this data to current regional evacuation route conditions. A comparison of the data from preplanning studies will be made to the estimated responses and traffic data estimated for the actual Floyd event with explanations for any differences in these figures. DOT Coordination & Reverse-laning The contractor will collect and review all availab The contractor will review and document existing reverse lane evacuation
strategies and plans for all evacuation routes being The contractor will assist and make reco The Travel Demand Forecast System (TDFS) will be designed to run on Windows NT with ArcView and have the capability to be a web-based application that allows users to view and manipulate scenarios that deal with evacuation planning. The system will provide a graphical The draft report must be completed by 28 January 2000. The final report will be completed 10 working days after comments are provided to the contractor and no later than 15 March 1999. The TDFS will be put out on the contractors web site during its development for FEMA and Corps review and comment.
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performed
by Post, Buckeley, Schuh, and Jernigan.
route data from existing studies in NC, SC, GA and FL. and put it in a
format that can be used for regional evacuations.
le
traffic count data for Floyd and previous major hurricane events focusing
on: response/queuing characteristics and service volume/capacity implications.
This task will explain where the traffic delays occurred and why. Behavioral
data will be used to determine how the multi-state evacuations effected
each other. It will also outline and discuss what actions could have been
taken to reduce or prevent these delays in the future.
considered
for implementation and evaluate the benefits and timesavings of each one-waying
alternative. Some of the routes that this would include are I-40 in North
Carolina, I-26 in South Carolina, I-16 in Georgia, and the Florida Turnpike.
This effort will require intense coordination with State and Federal DOT’s,
State Emergency Management Offices and local traffic control authorities.
The contractor will help develop and document standards for the operational
components of one way evacuation.
mmendations
for the development of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) strategies
and concepts to help system users. This may include advanced traffic management
systems (ATMS), traveler information systems, emergency evacuation support
measures and rural ITS measures. Most of these measures will help to manage
traffic flows and direction and provide a means to get essential information
to evacuees in route.
interface
with button and menu selections that function with the point and click
of a mouse. The base area to be covered by the program will include VA.,
NC, SC., GA., FL., AL., MS., and TN. The TDFS will have a travel demand
module and a network analysis module. Although the display will show the
entire SE area, traffic calculations and data display screens for evacuating
traffic will only apply to counties in NC, SC, GA and FL.