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The transportation sector in California has begun a shift toward adopting Electric Vehicles (EVs) as a primary source of individual and corporate mobility. The US Government and the State of California are initiating public-sector financed charging station infrastructure to help in this change-over to EVs. Automobile companies and private enterprises are also heavily investing in Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) infrastructure going forward. The state of California is subject to natural disasters such as Fire, Earthquakes, and periodic flooding. Increasing numbers of BEVs may add new challenges to mass evacuations that are often associated with natural disasters. This work focuses on unique challenges in providing BEV charging infrastructure during evacuations in regions that: are small towns with a considerable rural population, are prone to natural disasters, have a single evacuation route, have underdeveloped EV charging infrastructure, are considerable distance to a major center of EV charging infrastructure and safety from the mass evacuation scenario, have a secondary small charging location also available on the single evacuation route that leads to the major city of safety. To analyze the unique challenges of these particular mass-evacuation scenarios, a simulation was created to estimate the evacuation times of the BEV population given a set charging infrastructure. The model also includes BEV charging infrastructure, and for a single secondary charging station that is along the evacuation route. The objective of the simulation model is to determine the charging needs for a rural evacuation scenario and the ideal distance to an alternate secondary charging station along a single evacuation route in order to minimize total evacuation time. In order to provide a more realistic set of scenarios for the model, two different rural evacuation scenarios were analyzed. Kernville, California, in Kern County that is 52 miles from Bakersfield Auberry, California, in Fresno County that is 36 miles from Fresno The BEV charging infrastructure model inputs are customized for assumed BEV charging infrastructure in the year 2025 based on historical BEV registration numbers according to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The simulation results show that the projected charging infrastructure in the year 2025 would suffice for an evacuation scenario in which 90% of the BEV arrive at the evacuation destination within 10 hours of the evacuation order. However, due to the severity of potential danger in short-notice wildfire evacuations, it would be ideal to further decrease the total evacuation time. The simulation model found that increasing the charging infrastructure by one level 3 charge plug had a much larger impact on minimizing evacuation time than increasing it by two level 2 charge plugs. Therefore, it would be beneficial for the rural towns to invest in level 3 chargers to shorten evacuation times.

An organized evacuation of pedestrians entrapped in a building in emergencies such as those caused by fire, bomb blast, or intentional or unintentional release of toxins in the environment is of utmost importance. The focus of this study is on the development of a formal control methodology for an orderly and jam-free evacuation of pedestrians entrapped in a network of corridors in buildings in such emergency situations. To develop an effective solution, the pedestrian evacuation from a network of corridors is divided into two basic problems of flow routing and flow control. In this study the solutions of these two basic problems are developed. The proposed solution for the flow routing problem is based on the concept of shortest paths on a graph wherein the shortest paths are determined by the dynamic programming approach. The proposed approach can be used to determine the static shortest paths that are commonly displayed as evacuation routes in the buildings. The approach can also be used to determine the real-time evacuation routes if the real-time changes in the passage conditions are monitored. Such monitoring will usually consist of quantitative assessments of the congestion enroute and of the corridor availabilities along the evacuation paths. Based on these assessments one could compute either the shortest-distance-to-exit paths using the actual corridor lengths or shortest-time-to-exit paths using the congestion based corridor traverse time estimates. The application of the proposed shortest path routing scheme is demonstrated on a realistic problem of evacuation of pedestrians from a large network of corridors in a building consisting of multiple floors and multiple exits. Next the problems of pedestrian flow in a long corridor as well as in a network of corridors are considered. Analytical formulations are developed to define the flow conditions in the two cases. The time evolution of pedestrian flow in a corridor is defined by ordinary differential equation with the average pedestrian density in the corridor as the state variable. To accommodate the possible spatial variations in the pedestrian densities, a long corridor can be divided into several subsections with the flow in each subsection defined by an ordinary differential equation. With this, the flow evolution in a long corridor or a network of corridors is defined by a system of differential equations. The pedestrian in-flow consisting of rear input discharge as well room input discharges are considered in the formulation. For a long corridor flow control, analytical models for three flow conditions representing the end, middle and beginning phases of an evacuation in an exit corridor are developed. This is followed by the development of an analytical framework for the flow control in a network of corridors. The state variables representing the flow conditions and the control variables to regulate the pedestrian flow are introduced. For both the corridor and the network models, first the control variable values are defined to simulate the uncontrolled situation. These values are typically those that can be expected in a panic situation. Simulation of such uncontrolled scenarios for different models clearly indicates serious interruptions in evacuation caused by the jamming of corridors at different locations. To avoid the jam problem associated with the uncontrolled flow, the feedback control schemes are developed. An optimization-based approach is proposed for designing the feedback control. The control scheme is designed to ensure that the flow states continuously track a certain optimal state and that a certain objective function of the control variables is optimized. From the implementation point of view, an important aspect of the proposed control methodology is that the control actions always remain within the desired bounds. Numerical simulations for the uncontrolled and controlled flow scenarios are performed for an evacuation from a complex network of corridors representing a realistic evacuation problem. A comparison of the numerical results of the controlled and the uncontrolled flow scenarios clearly demonstrates the superiority of the controlled case in terms of smooth evolution of the flow parameters with continuous outflow of pedestrians from the network at some optimum level. / Ph. D.

This dissertation studies hyperbolic partial differential equations for Conservation Laws motivated by traffic control problems. New traffic models for multi-directional flow in two dimensions are derived and their properties studied. Control models are proposed where the control variable is a multiplicative term in the flux function. Control models are also proposed for relaxation type systems of hyperbolic PDEs. Existence of optimal control for the case of constant controls is presented. Unbounded and bounded feedback control designs are proposed. These include advective, diffusive, and advective-diffusive controls. Existence result for the bounded advective control is derived. Performance of the relaxation model using bounded advective control is analyzed. Finally simulations using Godunov scheme are performed on unbounded and bounded feedback advective controls. / Ph. D.

The Mass Evacuation (MASSVAC) model was originally developed for analysis and evaluation of evacuation plan in a specific area facing natural disasters. It was later applied to deal with the problems of evacuation around nuclear power stations (MASSVAC 3.0). The purpose of this model is to simulate the network clearance time and evacuation routes. In the process, it employs the Dial's or the all-or-nothing method to assign the traffic on to the network. The major effort in this research is to include the user equilibrium assignment method to reduce the evacuation times and to improve highway network performance. Evacuation routes, number of links used, and evacuation times etc. are found to be influenced by the user equilibrium assignment method. Transportation System Management (TSM) strategies have also been incorporated in this enhanced model (MASSVAC 4.0) to improve the network performance during evacuation. The trip distribution process and the shortest path algorithm has been modified appropriately to suit the user equilibrium assignment. / Master of Science

Evacuation processes can be evaluated using different simulation models. However, recently, microscopic simulation models have become a more popular tool for this purpose. The objectives of this study are to model multiple evacuation scenarios and to compare the INTEGRATION microscopic traffic simulation model against the MATSim mesoscopic model. Given that the demand was the same for both models, the comparison was achieved based on three indicators: estimated evacuation time, average trip duration, and average trip distance. The results show that the estimated evacuation times in both models are close to each other since the Origin-Destination input file has a long tail distribution and so the majority of the evacuation time is associated when travelers evacuate and not the actual evacuation times. However, the evaluation also shows a considerable difference between the two models in the average trip duration. The average trip duration using INTEGRATION increases with increasing traffic demand levels and decreasing roadway capacity. On the other hand, the average trip duration using MATSim decreases with increasing traffic demand and decreasing the roadway capacity. Finally, the average trip distance values were significantly different in both models. The conclusion showed that the INTEGRATION model is more realistic than the MATSim model for evacuation purposes. The study concludes that despite the large execution times of a microscopic traffic simulation, the use of microsimulation is a worthwhile investment. / Master of Science

This master's thesis, which is entitled "Evaluation of the barrierlessness of public buildings in terms of the evacuation of disabled persons in the cadastre of the City of Pilsen" is divided into two main sections - theoretical and practical. The theoretical section defines basic terms regarding the evacuation of individuals in general, the divisions of evacuation, divisions and characteristics of physically disabled persons and the risks involved in the evacuation of these individuals. Furthermore, it deals with the inclusion of evacuation and barrierlessness in Czech laws. This thesis also deals with the evacuation of public buildings including the time needed for evacuating individuals, the technical means for evacuation, and both static technical and mobile means. Fire-fighting technology for the evacuation of individuals is also mentioned. In order to gather data for the practical section, qualitative research was carried out in the form of structured interviews and tours of selected public buildings. Questions in the interviews were focused on the evacuation of individuals in general and ensuring preparedness for evacuating disabled individuals from the public building in question. The first goal of the thesis was to assess the preparedness of selected public buildings for evacuating disabled individuals in the cadastre of the City of Pilsen. Results show that selected public buildings are prepared for evacuation, but carrying out such an evacuation, including the evacuation of disabled individuals, is often dealt with in an unsatisfactory manner. The second goal was to propose measures or changes for the improvement of the present state of affairs. These propositions were processed based on results gathered from interviews and visits to public buildings. A total of ten buildings that expressed interest in this issue were incorporated into the research. The value of this thesis lies primarily in the effort to make the issue of evacuating disabled persons more visible. In the future, the thesis may be useful for comparing changes in preparedness for evacuating disabled individuals. At the same time, it may also be used as a source of information on the given issue and on evacuation as such.

This master's thesis, which is entitled "Evaluation of the barrierlessness of public buildings in terms of the evacuation of disabled persons in the cadastre of the City of Pilsen" is divided into two main sections - theoretical and practical. The theoretical section defines basic terms regarding the evacuation of individuals in general, the divisions of evacuation, divisions and characteristics of physically disabled persons and the risks involved in the evacuation of these individuals. Furthermore, it deals with the inclusion of evacuation and barrierlessness in Czech laws. This thesis also deals with the evacuation of public buildings including the time needed for evacuating individuals, the technical means for evacuation, and both static technical and mobile means. Fire-fighting technology for the evacuation of individuals is also mentioned. In order to gather data for the practical section, qualitative research was carried out in the form of structured interviews and tours of selected public buildings. Questions in the interviews were focused on the evacuation of individuals in general and ensuring preparedness for evacuating disabled individuals from the public building in question. The first goal of the thesis was to assess the preparedness of selected public buildings for evacuating disabled individuals in the cadastre of the City of Pilsen. Results show that selected public buildings are prepared for evacuation, but carrying out such an evacuation, including the evacuation of disabled individuals, is often dealt with in an unsatisfactory manner. The second goal was to propose measures or changes for the improvement of the present state of affairs. These propositions were processed based on results gathered from interviews and visits to public buildings. A total of ten buildings that expressed interest in this issue were incorporated into the research. The value of this thesis lies primarily in the effort to make the issue of evacuating disabled persons more visible. In the future, the thesis may be useful for comparing changes in preparedness for evacuating disabled individuals. At the same time, it may also be used as a source of information on the given issue and on evacuation as such.

The individuals with disabilities are disproportionately vulnerable to hazards. However, there is very little research inquiry focused on evacuation environments and the behavior of individuals with disabilities. The most widely applied computational method used to study how effective the built environment facilities emergency evacuations in individuals-based modeling. Current pedestrian evacuation models rarely include individuals with disabilities in their simulated populations due to there being very few empirical studies of the evacuation behavior of individuals with disabilities. As a result, the models do not replicate accurate patterns of pedestrian or evacuation behavior of a heterogeneous population, which results in the evacuation needs of individuals with disabilities being generally overlooked. To begin addressing this limitation, our research group at Utah State University (USU) has performed empirical research to observe the microscopic evacuation behavior of individuals with disabilities in heterogeneous population contexts. The purpose of this research was to: (1) develop and analyze evacuation curves to understand and assess evacuation strategies for heterogeneous populations, and (2) analyze the microscopic behavior of evacuees at exit doors necessary for developing credible and valid pedestrian and evacuation models. Doing so will contribute to evacuation models which replicate accurate patterns of pedestrian and evacuation behavior of heterogeneous populations, leading to the consideration of the evacuation needs of individuals with disabilities.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed July 21, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 90-93).