Cellular Automata for Traffic Modelling and Simulations in a Situation of Evacuation from Disaster Areas

Abstract

The traffic flow studies using microscopic simulations (micro traffic model) have leap with the occurrence of the advancement of computer technology in the last one and half decade, as shown in (Nagel, K. & Schreckenberg, M., 1992); (Nagel, K., 1996); (Bando, M., et al., 1995). The evacuation system in the micro traffic simulation model has been studied and reported a couple of years ago. In the early stage, some examples of micro traffic simulation models related with emergency evacuation are investigated by (Sugiman, T. & Misumi, J., 1988); (Stern, E. & Sinuany-Stem, Z., 1989). The modelling system of emergency evacuation in the traffic stated by (Sheffi, Y., et al., 1982); (Hobeika, A.G. & Jamei, B., 1985); (Cova, T.J. & Church, R.L., 1997) has chosen to estimate evacuation time from an affected area using static analysis tools at macroscopic or microscopic levels. Another research of emergency evacuation at the micro traffic scale was conducted by (Pidd, M., et al., 1996). They developed a prototype of spatial decision support system that can be used for emergency planners to evaluate contingency plans for evacuation from disaster areas. It does not take the interactions between individual vehicles into consideration. Two basic components of agent-based modeling, i.e. (1) a model of agents and (2) a model of their environment were introduced by (Deadmann, P.J., 1999). An individual agent makes a decision based on the interaction between him and the other agents together with localized knowledge (Teodorovic, D.A., 2003). How evacuation time can be affected under different evacuation scenarios, such as opening an alternative exit, invoking traffic control, changing the number of vehicles leaving a household was observed based on agent-based simulation techniques (Church, R.L. & Sexton, R., 2002). Neighbourhood evacuation plans in an urbanized wild land interface were described by (Cova, T.J. & Johnson, J.P., 2002) using agent-based simulation model. They were able to assess spatial effects of a proposed second access road on household evacuation time in a very detailed way. The effectiveness of simultaneous and staged evacuation strategies using agent-based simulation for three different road network structures were presented by (Chen, X. & Zhan, F.B., 2008). They measured the effectiveness based on total time of evacuation from affected areas.