Develop An Evacuation Management Decision Support System

自1900年加尔维斯顿飓风以来，改进的探测、预警和疏散系统减少了美国自然灾害造成的生命损失。除非迅速采取有效措施，否则灾害多发地区的人口增长可能会扭转这一趋势。尽管人口增长，但抗灾的土地使用和建筑做法可能有助于遏制生命损失，但实施这些做法存在经济和政治障碍。因此，需要提高疏散受威胁人口的能力。本研究项目通过开发疏散管理决策支持系统(EMDSS)来满足这一需要，以协助公职人员监测危险的发生，并确定何时何地开始疏散。将使用多项调查构建一个大型数据库，其中包括警告/准备时间、遵从性/自发疏散率、疏散路线利用率、风险地区居民和暂住者(特别是商务和旅游旅客)的疏散成本，以及疏散对企业的经济影响。关于预警和准备时间、遵从率和自发疏散率以及疏散路线利用率的数据很少；文献中缺乏关于疏散成本(而不是灾害影响造成的损失)的数据。该数据库将提供给EMDSS，以便在面临飓风等危险时为公职人员提供支持，并帮助他们在时间限制和不确定性下平衡对公共安全的威胁和疏散成本。通过收集和分析推动灾害理论研究的数据，将达到有价值的学科目标。此外，该项目将发挥重要的跨学科作用，将社会心理学理论与交通规划理论相结合，以开发改进的疏散时间估计模型，并与家庭和商业经济学的理论相结合，开发疏散成本模型。这些观点将与决策分析和决策支持系统的概念相结合，以产生EMDSS。更广泛的社会效用将通过技术的重大进步来支持疏散决定。这项工作将为德克萨斯州州长应急管理部(DEM)的减灾和恢复中心20多年来开展的危险脆弱性分析和疏散规划工作增加价值并发挥其作用。这种与运营机构的密切关系在大学灾害研究中心中是独一无二的。HRRC和DEM之间的关系为用户在软件设计方面提供了无与伦比的机会，并加快了向州和地方应急管理人员转让技术的速度。这项研究将与台湾国家减灾科技计划(NAPHM)的人员进行协调，他们有兴趣合作，将EMDSS扩展到山体滑坡和内陆洪水的疏散。减少灾害与恢复中心与NAPHM签署了一份协议备忘录，促进了两个中心之间的合作交流。最后，研究生将受益于他们参与调查开发、数据收集以及EMDSS开发和评估。更广泛的研究生群体将受益于将这种材料纳入调查人员的环境危害管理课程(特别是关于灾害应对规划的课程)和未来版本的教科书--《社区应急规划的行为基础》。该项目将雇用代表性不足群体的成员，特别是来自发展中国家的妇女和学生。

Since the Galveston hurricane of 1900, improved systems for detection, warning, and evacuation have decreased the loss of life from natural hazards in the United States. Population growth in hazard prone areas is likely to reverse this trend unless prompt and effective measures are taken. Hazard-resistant land use and building construction practices could help to contain loss of life despite population growth, but there are economic and political barriers to implementing them. Improvements in the ability to evacuate threatened populations will thus be needed.This research project addresses this need by developing an Evacuation Management Decision Support System (EMDSS) to assist public officials in monitoring a hazard's onset and determining when and where to initiate evacuations. A large data base on warning/preparation times, compliance/spontaneous evacuation rates, evacuation route utilization, and evacuation costs for both risk area residents and transients (especially business and tourist travelers), and economic impacts to business due to evacuations will be constructed using multiple surveys. Data on warning and preparation times, compliance and spontaneous evacuation rates, and evacuation route utilization are sparse; data on evacuation costs (as opposed to losses from disaster impact) are lacking in the literature. This database will feed the EMDSS to provide public officials support in facing hazards, such as hurricanes and help them balance the threat to public safety against evacuation costs under time constraints and uncertainty. Valuable disciplinary goals will be reached through the collection and analysis of data that advance theoretical disaster research. In addition, the project will perform a major interdisciplinary function by integrating social psychological theories with those from transportation planning to develop an improved evacuation time estimation model, and with theories from household and business economics to develop an evacuation cost model. These perspectives will be integrated with concepts from decision analysis and decision support systems to produce the EMDSS. Broader social utility will result through significant advances in technology to support evacuation decisions. This work will add value to and leverage the hazard vulnerability analysis and evacuation planning work performed by the Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center for the Texas Governor's Division of Emergency Management (DEM) for over twenty years. This close relationship with an operational agency is unique among university-based hazard/disaster research centers. The relationship between HRRC and DEM provides an unparalleled opportunity for user input into software design and accelerated technology transfer to state and local emergency managers. The research will be coordinated with personnel from the Taiwanese National Science and Technology Program for Hazard Mitigation (NAPHM), who are interested in collaborating in the extending the EMDSS to evacuations from landslides and inland flooding. The Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center has a Memorandum of Agreement with NAPHM that has promoted cooperative exchanges between the two centers.Finally, graduate students will benefit by their involvement in survey development, data collection, and EMDSS development and evaluation. A broader group of graduate students will benefit from inclusion of this material in the investigators' environmental hazard management courses (especially the one on disaster response planning) and in a future edition of the textbook, Behavioral Foundations of Community Emergency Planning. The project will employ members of under-represented groups, especially women and students from developing countries