Simulating large-scale evacuation scenarios in commercial shopping districts - methodologies and case study

Large-scale regional evacuation is an important component of homeland security emergency response planning; however, evacuations involving large commercial shopping areas have not been a major focus area for research initiatives. This paper presents microscopic simulation methods for modeling large scale evacuations within the context of a case study involving the evacuation of parking lots within a commercial shopping district. A base model for background traffic was constructed and validated in order to represent real traffic conditions. Six evacuation scenarios were developed and explored within simulation experiments by varying factors involving the occupancy rate of parking lots and background traffic levels. The performance of vehicles attempting to evacuate the areas was captured in terms of an evacuation risk profile involving the most problematic parking lots and areas where traffic bottlenecks are projected to occur.