Modeling and Assessing Crossing Elimination as a Strategy to Reduce Evacuee Travel Time

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorJahangiri, Arashen
dc.contributor.committeechairMurray-Tuite, Pamela Marieen
dc.contributor.committeememberHancock, Kathleen L.en
dc.contributor.committeememberRahmandad, Hazhiren
dc.contributor.departmentCivil Engineeringen
dc.date.accessioned2017-04-04T19:49:53Zen
dc.date.adate2013-02-26en
dc.date.available2017-04-04T19:49:53Zen
dc.date.issued2012-12-13en
dc.date.rdate2016-09-30en
dc.date.sdate2013-02-20en
dc.description.abstractDuring evacuations, emergency managers and departments of transportation seek to facilitate the movement of citizens out of impacted or threatened areas. One strategy they may consider is crossing elimination, which prohibits certain movements at intersections, that may be permissible under normal operating conditions. A few previous studies examined this strategy in conjunction with contra-flow operations, but fewer have considered crossing elimination by itself. This study helps fill the existing gap in knowledge of the individual effects of crossing elimination. A bi-level model that iterates between optimization and simulation is developed to determine the optimal configuration of intersection movements from a set of pre-specified possible configurations for intersections in a given area. At the upper level, evacuees' travel time is minimized and at the lower level, traffic is assigned to the network with the traffic assignment-simulation software DynusT. The overall model is solved with a simulated annealing heuristic and applied to a real case study to assess the impact of crossing elimination. Three scenarios are developed and examined using the solution method proposed in this research. These scenarios are developed using combinations of two elements: (1) Evacuee destination distributions, and (2) Evacuee departure time distributions. Results showed about 3-5 percent improvement in total evacuee travel time can be achieved in these scenarios. Availability of through movements at intersections and existing merging points in movement configurations are the two factors influencing the selection of movement configurations.en
dc.description.degreeMaster of Scienceen
dc.identifier.otheretd-02202013-120259en
dc.identifier.sourceurlhttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-02202013-120259/en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/76873en
dc.language.isoen_USen
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectCrossing eliminationen
dc.subjectevacuee travel timeen
dc.subjectsimulated annealing algorithmen
dc.subjectDynusTen
dc.titleModeling and Assessing Crossing Elimination as a Strategy to Reduce Evacuee Travel Timeen
dc.typeThesisen
dc.type.dcmitypeTexten
thesis.degree.disciplineCivil Engineeringen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.levelmastersen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Scienceen

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
etd-02202013-120259_Jahangiri_A_T_2012.pdf
Size:
1.28 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download

Collections

Masters Theses