Award Abstract # 1011545
COLLABORATIVE PROPOSAL: DRU: INCORPORATING HOUSEHOLD DECISION MAKING AND DYNAMIC TRANSPORTATION MODELING IN HURRICANE EVACUATION: AN INTEGRATED SOCIAL SCIENCE-ENGINEERING APPROACH

NSF Org: SES
Division of Social and Economic Sciences
Recipient: PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Initial Amendment Date: May 24, 2010
Latest Amendment Date: February 1, 2011
Award Number: 1011545
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Robert O'Connor
roconnor@nsf.gov
 (703)292-7263
SES
 Division of Social and Economic Sciences
SBE
 Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences
Start Date: September 1, 2009
End Date: September 30, 2013 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $463,410.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $469,410.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2008 = $463,409.00
FY 2011 = $6,000.00
History of Investigator:
  • Satish Ukkusuri (Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Purdue University
2550 NORTHWESTERN AVE # 1100
WEST LAFAYETTE
IN  US  47906-1332
(765)494-1055
Sponsor Congressional District: 04
Primary Place of Performance: Purdue University
2550 NORTHWESTERN AVE # 1100
WEST LAFAYETTE
IN  US  47906-1332
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
04
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): YRXVL4JYCEF5
Parent UEI: YRXVL4JYCEF5
NSF Program(s): HSD - DEC, RISK & UNCERTAINTY
Primary Program Source: 01000809DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
01001112DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 0000, 9251, OTHR, SMET
Program Element Code(s): 732200
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.075

ABSTRACT

This project will develop new methodologies for understanding hurricane evacuations by integrating behavioral modeling of household decision making with dynamic transportation modeling. By understanding evacuation decision making, the research will contribute to improving the efficiency of hurricane evacuation.

This project will develop novel modeling approaches to: (1) Estimate the social, demographic and cultural characteristics that influence household evacuation decision making from surveys of Miami-Dade County residents; (2) Understand how people synthesize evacuation warnings up to the time they make the decision to evacuate;
(3) Assess the influence of household decisions based on spatial location; (4) Estimate the temporal variation of evacuees from the time of warning; (5) Determine the optimal time of departure, optimal route and destination choice based on the temporal demand patterns; (6) Incorporate behavioral rules obtained from social science analysis to simulate the transportation system impacts; and (7) Identify ways to distribute the obtained results from multiple hurricane scenarios to stakeholders.

The project will use multidisciplinary approaches to understand hurricane evacuation by bringing together approaches from social science, network optimization, agent-based modeling, transportation operations, stochastic optimization and hurricane emergency response.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Hasan, S.* and Ukkusuri, S.V. "A contagion model for understanding the propagation of hurricane warning information" Transportation Research Part B (Methodological) , v.45 , 2011

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

The goal of this project is to develop an integrated model for hurricane evacuation combining household level decision making with an agent based traffic simulation model. Such an integration will allow the characterization rich household behavior and measure key performance metrics related to evacuation clearance times. Furthermore, it will allow the development and testing of meaningful policies.

 

The project is divided into two main phases: (1) Household Level Decision Making and (2) Agent Based Traffic Simulation Modeling. New Data is collected from Miami Beach residents to understand the household decision-making and this is used to estimate various behavioral models. Then the behavioral models are integrated with a novel agent based traffic simulation model to measure average travel clearance time, the effects on the different populations in the city and the computational efficiency of the tool.

 

On the behavioral side, a household level model was developed. The household level model captured various decision making attributes and identified the factors that govern the decision making related to: (1) which households evacuate; (2) timing of the evacuation; (3) destination type choice; (4) the routing election; (5) shadow evacuation (6) number of vehicles that households use; (7) pre-evacuation and enroute evacuation activity participation. This is one of the first projects which capture these different behavioral dimensions at the household level for understanding hurricane evacuation. Survey data from Miami beach residents was collected to estimate these models.

 

The behavioral models are integrated into a household level agent based traffic simulation. A novel agent based model was developed which can capture the car-following and lane changing behavior of traffic. Data modeling was performed to obtain the correct level of network detail and ensure network integrity. Different test scenarios for the base case and projected future years was conducted to measure various performance metrics. This agent based model is one of the very few tools that are available to measure the effectiveness of household level decision-making in hurricanes and in arriving at novel policies to maximize evacuation efficiency in hurricanes.

 


Last Modified: 12/31/2013
Modified by: Satish Ukkusuri

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