The Role of Transportation in Evacuation and Reentry: A Survey of Practice

Abstract

Over the past decade a wealth of new information has become available on the role played by transportation in the planning and management of evacuations. To assess the current state of practice on the role of transportation in evacuation and reentry, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program recently sponsored a project to review the practices associated with this topic. The goal of the study was to collect and document information to summarize the current state of the practice in evacuation planning and control as well as to highlight practices that were deemed to be particularly effective or innovative. This article expands upon the findings of the practice survey portion of the NCHRP study. Among the significant findings presented here is the extent to which transportation systems and agencies now play an active role in evacuation planning and operations. Although transportation agencies are not “in charge” of evacuations, they are able to respond when needed because they bring specialized knowledge and critical assets to support evacuation efforts. It is thought that the information presented in this paper will help agencies involved in evacuations to gain a better understanding on the role that transportation currently plays in the United States and use this information to develop better planning, design, management techniques to improve the effectiveness and safety of future evacuations.