Traffic Modeling for Wildland–Urban Interface Fire Evacuation

Abstract

Several traffic modelling tools are currently available for evacuation planning and real-time decision support during emergencies. In this article, we review potential traffic modelling approaches in the context of Wildland-Urban-Interface (WUI) fire evacuation applications. An overview of existing modelling approaches and features are evaluated pertaining to: fire-related, spatial and demographic factors, intended application (planning or decision support), and temporal issues. This systematic review shows the importance of the following modelling approaches: dynamic modelling structures, considering behavioural variability and en-route choice; activity-based models for short-notice evacuation planning; macroscopic traffic simulation for real-time evacuation management. Subsequently, the modelling features of twenty-three traffic models and applications currently available in practice and the literature are reviewed and matched with the benchmark features identified for WUI fire applications. Based on this review analysis, recommendations are made for developing traffic models specifically applicable to WUI fire evacuation, including possible integrations with wildfire and pedestrian models.

Development of a Smoke Dispersion Forecast System for Korean Forest Fires

“…Overall, the results of the simulated scenarios demonstrate the capability of the KFDSP system to produce real-time predictions of smoke transport in terms of CO, PM 10 , and PM 2.5 concentrations given fire activity and weather. This indicates that the KFDSP system could be used as a screening model for a quick evacuation from the hazardous smoke of forest fires [44,45]. Particularly, it also implies that the capability of the real-time forecasting mode of the KFDSP system can effectively improve the accuracy of smoke plume dispersion predictions since a Gaussian plume model can only deal with a static dispersion, such as VSMOKE [46] and the Simple Approach Smoke Estimation Model (SASEM) [47].…”

Evacuation

“…This perspective includes topics that affect traffic flow including household vehicle use, vehicle departure rates, routing, intersection control, network bottlenecks, directional egress, and lane-reversal (contraflow). These two historically separate perspectives can be combined, and contemporary research teams include behavioral experts and transportation experts that study (and model) all evacuation time components (the reader might see the contribution on Computational Evacuation Modelling in Wildfires) (Intini et al 2018).…”

Guidance on Design and Construction of the Built Environment Against Wildland Urban Interface Fire Hazard: A Review

“…The 2016 Fort McMurray fire alone had the costliest impact in the Canadian history in terms of insured losses [43]. Due to these urgent needs, research has started to address the consequences of these incidents [8,30], provide measures to aid evacuation planning [9], and coupling fire, traffic and pedestrian models to aid response to such incidents [25,42,43].…”