Emergency Evacuation Planning with Microscopic Traffic Simulation

A microscopic simulation model (MITSIMLab) for evaluating emergency evacuation plans was developed for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). MITSIMLab was used as the microscopic traffic simulator to model traffic operations. The study area consisted of the entire region that includes all technical areas within the LANL and the towns of White Rock and Los Alamos, New Mexico. Evacuation planning is a critical component of overall security planning. The approach adopted presents a laboratory-like setup to evaluate a large range of evacuation scenarios including no evacuation. Five evacuation scenarios are considered in LANL evacuation planning. The scenarios, developed in consultation with the Emergency Management Office of LANL, include full or partial closures of various roads, limited access to some special facilities, and security delays at certain locations. Performance measures for evaluating an evacuation plan include the total time to achieve a complete evacuation, the time needed for a partial evacuation in which the population within certain areas is at risk, and the percentage of the population in affected zones as a function of time.