Modeling and Performance Assessment of Contraflow Evacuation Termination Points

About 20 hurricane evacuation contraflow segments are planned for use in the United States. When activated, these routes will serve as lifelines for people fleeing the potential destruction of approaching storms. The termination points of these segments are critical because they move traffic from the reverse-flowing lane into the normal flow direction. They are also thought to affect the overall effectiveness of the sections significantly because they can regulate the amount of volume that exits the section. The research effort described in this paper was undertaken to assess and compare the operational characteristics of contraflow evacuation termination point designs that would be used under threat from catastrophic storms. Among the developments of the research was an approach and set of assumptions for using CORSIM to model contraflowing freeway traffic under evacuation conditions. These models were used to assess and rank the planned termination designs comparatively and to identify the factors that ...