AnnuAl RepoRt - University of Alabama at Birmingham

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Domain 2: Development of a Dynamic Traffic Assignment and Simulation Model for Incident and Emergency Management Applications in the Birmingham Region Principal Investigators: Virginia Sisiopiku, PhD & Andrew Sullivan, PE, MSCE (University of Alabama at Birmingham) Co-Investigators: Fouad H. Fouad, PhD & Wilbur Hitchcock, PhD (University of Alabama at Birmingham), Burcu B. Keskin, PhD, Sharif H. Melouk, PhD & Daniel Turner, PhD (University of Alabama), Kyriacos Mouskos, PhD (City University of New York), Athanasios Ziliaskopoulos, PhD (University of Thessaly), Curtis Barret & Tom Vick (Vista Transportation Group) Collaborators: Saiyid Hassan Sikder, PhD (University of Alabama at Birmingham), David Brown, PhD (University of Alabama), Michael Anderson, PhD (University of Alabama at Huntsville), Neville Parker, PhD (City University of New York) Traffic incidents and natural or man-made disasters can impose significant safety risks and disruptions on traffic flows. Moreover, congestion resulting from such occurrences may impede the ability of EMS to provide timely response to those in need of medical attention. There is a need to understand how traffic will be impacted in a large metro area in such an event for three reasons: • to manage the traffic so that it does not impede emergency operations, • to manage the evacuation of populations under threat and divert pass-through traffic out of harm’s way, and • to manage the flow of first responders to the site of the incident. In general, the research community has not studied the interactions among these three (3) flows generated almost instantly after a major disaster. Traffic engineers seem to understand fairly well how traffic flow behaves under normal conditions (usually User Equilibrium behavior is assumed). Enforcement and emergency management operators can route and coordinate first responders to a emergency site but although they recognize that the typical background traffic could impede with the emergency vehicles, they are not in a position to manage this traffic except when drastic measures (such as closures of access roads) are taken by law enforcement. When, in addition to the above, there is also a sizeable area or high density corporate, educational or government campus that needs to be evacuated, then this flow generates highly complex interactions with the previous two flows that has not been adequately addressed in the literature or practice. A need has been recognized for models that can capture the fast evolving dynamic conditions taking into consideration the realities of the above mentioned three (3) flows, in addition to the management measures (street closures, traffic signal control alterations, informational messages) and infrastructure failures. Needless to say that a catastrophe is an extraordinary event and the drivers confronted with it are not expected to behave in the User Equilibrium and System Optimum behavior (as commonly accepted in transportation planning), which makes existing models not directly applicable. Finally, the impact of a major emergency may impact very large parts of the network, which requires the availability of models that can function on large scale regional networks yet maintain reasonable computational time. Currently, no tools exist in the market that can model dynamically large network traffic operations under emergency conditions. We are performing a research program consisting of five (5) separate but interrelated projects to address various aspects of incident and emergency management research and training needs. 22 uab utc annual report 2009-2010
D2 - Project 1: Capacity Building, Education and Technology Transfer. This project focuses on the development and delivery of a comprehensive research, education, and training plan aiming at advancing the knowledge and practice in incident and emergency management D2 - Project 2: Development, Calibration and Testing of the Birmingham Prototype Model. This project is charged with the development, calibration, and refinement of the Birmingham test bed and is a precondition for the successful execution of the following three research projects as described in Projects 3 through 5 D2 - Project 3: Development and Testing of a Decision Support Tool for Optimization of EMS Response Time. This project is utilizing an integrated simulation-optimization technique to enhance emergency vehicle response and transport time D2 - Project 4: Evaluation of Incident and Emergency Management Options in the Birmingham Region. This project is developing a framework that integrates physical infrastructure, transportation demand, and crash data and tests incident and emergency management scenarios and response actions. D2 - Project 5: The Role of Transit in Safe Evacuation of the Elderly and Disabled in Emergencies and Disasters. This project is studying issues related to the evacuation of individuals without personal vehicles and models the transit evacuation scenarios during small and large-scale evacuations. research 23
Page 1 and 2: Annual Report Traffic Safety & Inju
Page 3 and 4: Table of Contents Director’s Note
Page 5 and 6: ecause of two exceptional transport
Page 7 and 8: From 2004 to 2008, seat belts saved
Page 9 and 10: Center Staff university of alabama
Page 11 and 12: Office of the Director / Principal
Page 13 and 14: The Advisory Board The UAB UTC’s
Page 15 and 16: First Student Earns Certificate in
Page 17 and 18: In the United States, motor vehicle
Page 19 and 20: “Together, the UAB UTC and the TR
Page 21 and 22: UAB UTC’s First Minority Enrichme
Page 23: In 2008 there were an estimated 10,
Page 27 and 28: Urban Sprawl Associated with Increa
Page 29 and 30: Traffic Congestion Increases EMS Re
Page 31 and 32: First Wave of UAB UTC Distracted Dr
Page 33 and 34: Products, Technologies, and Researc
Page 35 and 36: Secretary Ray LaHood, United States
Page 37 and 38: Presentations Bose D, Crandall J, T
Page 39 and 40: TRIP ® Lab Students Present Resear
Page 41 and 42: effort to address and resolve press
Page 43 and 44: UAB UTC Provides Distracted Driving
Page 45 and 46: “The University of Alabama at Bir
Page 47 and 48: UTC Leadership and Special Guests 1
Page 49 and 50: PANEL 2: Public Awareness and Educa
Page 51 and 52: UAB UTC Featured in RITA Spotlight
Page 53 and 54: UAB UTC Welcomes New UTC Scientist
Page 55 and 56: UAB UTC Exploring Partnership with
Page 57 and 58: Workforce Development in Real Time:
Page 59 and 60: funding, sources & expenditures 200

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