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COMMUNICATING AND IMPLEMENTING THE RESULTS FROM MBTC DHS 1102 - SIMULATING LARGE-SCALE EVACUATION SCENARIOS IN COMMERCIAL SHOPPING DISTRICS - METHODOLOGIES AND CASE STUDY | ||||
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Manuel Rossetti, Ph.D.
January 1, 2012 – June 30, 2012
The planning of large-scale evacuations has become an important area of emphasis for emergency planners.
The NTSCOE-funded project entitled "Simulating Large-Scale Evacuation Scenarios in Commercial Shopping
Districts - Methodologies and Case Study," which was completed in December 2010, provided an exploratory
case study of the modeling methodologies and a state-of-the-art review of the modeling techniques required
to simulate the large-scale evacuation of a commercial shopping district. The region around the Northwest
Arkansas Mall and Spring Creek Centre in Fayetteville, AR was selected as the emergency planning zone. The
area is a heavily trafficked shopping region with parking lots, over 100 stores (including Home Depot,
Wal-Mart, the Northwest Arkansas Mall, Sears, Dillards, JC Penney, etc.), and covering approximately
3.1 square miles.
Such an area offers a prime target for emergency events such as the release of a bio-chemical agent, a bomb
attack by terrorists, or simply a bomb threat. Suppose an emergency event occurs during afternoon peak shopping
hours from 4:30 to 8:00 when traffic is much higher than usual. This is a worst case scenario. In such a scenario,
all people (e.g. customers, staff, etc.) have to escape to safe zones within the surrounding area.
A microscopic simulation model was developed and validated to simulate background traffic in order to represent
real traffic conditions. Evacuation scenarios were developed and explored within simulation experiments by varying
factors involving the occupancy rate of parking lots and background traffic levels. The performance of vehicles
attempting to evacuate the areas was captured in terms of an evacuation risk profile involving the most
problematic parking lots and traffic bottleneck areas. The project identified two key mitigation
strategies:1) traffic intervention (diverting or stopping incoming traffic) and 2) optimally assigning parking
lots to safe zones that can significantly reduce the time to evacuate.
The purpose of this NTSCOE Pilot Project is threefold 1) to investigate the realities of these simulated mitigation
strategies with the local emergency planning authorities, 2) to better disseminate the findings of the project both
locally and nationally, and 3) to develop a follow on research agenda to improve the state of the art in this area.
Product: In Progress (DHS MBTC-1111)
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