ITS Technologies for Decision Making during Evacuation Operations: A Review

Abstract

As natural and human-induced disasters have increased in recent years in number, magnitude, and impacts, the frequency of evacuation orders is expected to be accordingly raised in the future. Practice has shown, however, that many times, the respective operations face impediments, thus indicating the need for efficient tools to facilitate them. Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) have been recognized as a promising strategy in this direction. In this context, this study presents a comprehensive overview of current practices and research efforts regarding the use of ITS in real-time evacuation operations; the scope is to synthesize and critically discuss the state of the practice and state of the art on ITS-assisted decision making in evacuation management. Emphasis is placed on the modeling tools required for adequate representation of real-time evacuation conditions and on the role of emerging technologies in this field. Research findings are analyzed, challenges faced by transportation authorities are identified, and promising future directions are proposed. The paper concludes with a sociobehavioral analysis of the role of information provision in disaster settings, discussing its influence and the possible implications and complications arising, as well as reviewing relevant research studies from the evacuation literature.