Development and Evaluation of Dynamic Intelligent Vehicle Evacuation Alert System (IVEAS) in Congested Urban Settings: A Case Study of Beirut

Abstract

Natural and man-made disasters shed light on the importance of advanced intelligent and emergency evacuation planning and protocols. In congested urban settings, evacuation under emerging scenarios becomes more challenging. This paper explores the uncertainties that surround the benefits associated with implementing infrastructure-less Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANET) in a congested urban setting. The paper develops a high-level integrated VANET-based evacuation routing system with priority metrics for evacuation enhancement in highly congested areas. The system is tested under varying levels of VANET market penetration (MP), network disruption (ND), and traffic flow rates. The developed model can be used as a testing platform for emergency planning to help planners and decision-makers to identify the critical links in the traffic network. Results showed that the benefits of the proposed solution begin to materialize with regards to decreasing clearance times of vehicles within the network and thus allowing safe passage through crisis-affected areas at lower market penetration levels for increasing traffic volumes and communication ranges.