Presenter: Karzan Bahaaldin, PhD, PE, PTOE
Topic: Evaluating Connected Vehicles During Evacuations – Technical Lunch Meeting
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Abstract:
No-notice evacuations of metropolitan areas can place significant demands on transportation infrastructure. Connected Vehicle (CV) technology, with real-time V2V and V2I communications, can help emergency managers to develop efficient and cost-effective traffic management plans for such events. The objective of this research was to evaluate the impacts of CVs on no-notice evacuations using a case study of a downtown metropolitan area. The microsimulation software VISSIM was used to model the roadway network and the evacuation traffic. The researchers evaluated system performance with different CV penetration rates (from 0 to 30 percent CVs); and measured average speed, average delays and total delays. The findings suggest significant reductions in total delays when CVs reached a penetration rate of 30 percent, albeit increases in delays during the beginning of the evacuation. Additionally, the benefits could be greater for evacuations that last longer and with higher proportions of CVs in the vehicle stream.
Presenter:
Karzan Bahaaldin. Ph.D., PE, PTOE has over 22 years’ experience in civil engineering projects, including transportation/traffic planning, corridor studies, ITS, pedestrian and bicyclist facilities, and research. Dr. Bahaaldin has contributed in multiple publications including evaluation of Connected Vehicles (CV) during emergency evacuations, Investigation of Contributing Factors Regarding Wrong-Way Driving on Freeways, Real-Time Information Dissemination Requirements, The Impact of Traffic Incident Locations on a Metropolitan Evacuation, and driver behavior impacts on traffic operations. He currently works as a Senior Traffic Engineer at JMT’s Richmond, VA office.