A software utility for regional evacuation (SURE)

Regional evacuation is often a viable safeguard against natural catastrophes such as hurricanes and volcano eruptions, and man-made disasters such as toxic gas release into the atmosphere. Several computer programs exist for modeling regional evacuation on a given road network. As would be expected, these models are data intensive. In this paper, the development of a PC-based interactive computer model, Software Utility for Regional Evacuation (SURE), to create input to IDYNEV (for Interactive DYNamic EVacuation model) and analyze its output is discussed. The preprocessor module of SURE substantially reduces the time required to create input files to IDYNEV and the post-processor module summarizes the simulated results from the usually huge IDYNEV output files. The model also illustrates the evacuation network graphically and highlights problem links and intersections at selected intervals. SURE is being used extensively for evaualation studies under the US Army's Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness (CSEP) program.