A statistical approach to analyze user behaviour in road evacuation

Abstract

The international literature related to evacuation conditions proposes many studies that focus on the hurricane emergency case and consider revealed preference (RP) surveys for demand model estimation. As RP data are not available for all dangerous events, such models, derived from observation of past evacuation behavior, cannot be directly applied to other dangerous events. The paper discusses how the prediction of user behavior becomes essential in evacuations. For this purpose, evacuation trials and stated preference (SP) surveys may be conducted. As a first step, statistical analysis of stated behavior in emergency conditions could be carried out. This paper proposes several hypothetical scenarios that could be classified as SP scenarios, which consider three different dangerous situations with delayed effects in time. A sample of users is considered and their responses are statistically analyzed to study user behavior in evacuation conditions.