Date of Award

Spring 2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Electrical & Computer Engineering

Program/Concentration

Computer Engineering

Committee Director

James F. Leathrum Jr.

Committee Member

Min Song

Committee Member

Roland R. Mielke

Call Number for Print

Special Collections LD4331.E55 K433 2009

Abstract

Hurricane evacuation is one of the major steps in diminishing the devastating effects of hurricanes on lives and properties. The challenge in evacuating a large number of people in a short time is the severe congestion faced in the transportation network, leading to long delays and shortages. Standard hurricane evacuation plans focus on how to best utilize the main arteries. The research challenge is to not overload the fastest routes and to utilize all the routes efficiently. The evacuation routing system proposed in this thesis focuses on distributing the traffic load throughout the network, utilizing alternative routes not considered in initial planning, while not overloading those routes. Real-time traffic data is monitored through sensors on probe vehicles and taken into account to make better decisions. The proposed evacuation algorithm considers the transportation network as a resistive network, where traffic is distributed to utilize the full network. The vehicles are guided individually, and the decisions are made at a local level. This thesis shows that the proposed system opens the opportunity for greater throughput, thus a shorter overall evacuation time. A study of the evacuation of Hampton Roads demonstrates the potential to improve the throughput by 50 %.

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DOI

10.25777/09vx-3967

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