DRU: Integrated optimization of evacuation and mass care sheltering for hurricanes

DRU：飓风疏散和避难的综合优化PI：雷切尔·戴维森，特拉华大学(UD)。参与机构：康奈尔大学。该项目的目标是提高对飓风中疏散和大规模避难的理解和决策支持。在不确定、危险的条件下，在短短几天或几个小时内将数万甚至数十万人从广泛的地理区域转移到安全地点，并确保他们的安全，直到他们能够回家，这是一个极其复杂的过程，正如卡特里娜飓风非常清楚地表明的那样，风险很高。尽管取得了很大进展，但最近发生的事件以及飓风多发地区人口的无节制增长使我们确信，仍然存在许多挑战。传统的、保守的方法，即疏散所有被认为处于危险之中的人，在许多人太多、运输能力太少的地区不再可行。我们提出了一种全新的方法。在过去，这一应用中的数学建模仅限于估计清理区域所需的时间，假设问题的许多特征是不可控的输入(例如，避难所位置)。相反，我们将开发复杂的优化模型，扩展决策框架，专注于更高级别的目标，如最大限度地减少生命损失、成本和不公平，并考虑全面的战略和作战疏散和避难战略，以满足这些目标，例如，垂直疏散和战略选址避难所。这些模型将通过社会学家和工程师之间的紧密互动来开发，以确保它们牢牢地植根于人们的现实--S的行为。第一次，这些模型将基于单个飓风情景，而不是许多事件的保守汇总，而且它们将是动态的，考虑到官员可以随着事件的展开和有关情况变化的信息而更新他们的决策。该项目有5个主要步骤：(1)确定一套用于疏散和避难所模型的飓风情景，使它们适当地代表所有可能发生的事件，但数量足够少，以便对每个事件进行详细分析；(2)领导关键决策者和利益攸关方的焦点小组，以确定和描述适当的决策目标、约束、假设和可能的疏散和避难所管理战略；(3)利用焦点小组的意见，开发两个数学优化模型--一个长期战略模型和一个短期操作模型--用于疏散和避难所决策；(4)对受影响的公民进行调查，以确保优化模型假设和结果有意义；以及(5)通过北卡罗来纳州和佛罗里达州的案例研究来演示模型。任何疏散和避难所规划工作的有效性取决于其最薄弱的环节，因此它需要海洋科学、交通工程、风险建模、优化和行为研究等广泛的专业知识密切合作。我们已经在项目团队中汇集了这些专业知识。这个项目将有助于开始改变美国进行飓风疏散和避难的方式，解决目前方法的许多已知限制。该项目开发的新理解和优化模型将帮助地方和州应急管理人员更好地规划飓风疏散和避难，从而减少与未来飓风应对计划或执行不善相关的死亡、受伤和不必要的费用。通过在整个项目中与州和地方应急管理部门以及负责飓风疏散和避难的关键机构美国红十字会合作，我们将确保将研究结果尽快有效地传播给实践者。三名研究生将参与研究的各个方面，每个人至少有两名合作个人在他们的委员会中，以确保紧密的整合。通过提供一个真正跨学科的灾害研究的实质性例子，该项目将有助于推动历史上以社会学为基础的著名灾害研究中心向跨学科中心的转变。它还将有助于在特拉华大学推出新的灾害科学和管理跨学科研究生课程。

DRU: Integrated optimization of evacuation and sheltering for hurricanesPI: Rachel Davidson, University of Delaware (UD). Participating Institution: Cornell University.ABSTRACTThe goal of this project is to improve understanding of and decision support for evacuation and mass case sheltering in hurricanes. The task of moving tens or even hundreds of thousands of people from a wide geographic area in only a few days or hours under uncertain, dangerous conditions, getting them to safe locations, and keeping them safe until they can return home is an extraordinarily complicated process, and as Hurricane Katrina made abundantly clear, the stakes are high. Despite a lot of progress, recent events and unchecked population growth in hurricane-prone regions assure us that many challenges remain. The traditional, conservative approach of evacuating everyone thought to be at risk is no longer feasible in many areas in which there are simply too many people and too little transportation capacity. We propose a fundamentally new approach. In the past, math modeling in this application has been limited to estimating the time required to clear a region, assuming many characteristics of the problem are uncontrollable input (e.g., shelter locations). Instead, we will develop sophisticated optimization models with an expanded decision frame that focuses on higher-level objectives, such as minimizing life loss, cost, and inequity, and considers the full range of strategic and operational evacuation and sheltering strategies in meeting those objectives, including for example, vertical evacuation and strategically locating shelters. These models will be developed through a tight interaction between sociologists and engineers to ensure they are firmly grounded in the reality of people?s behavior. For the first time, the models will be based on individual hurricane scenarios instead of conservative aggregations of many events, and they will be dynamic, accounting for the fact that officials can update their decisions as an event unfolds and information about the situation changes. The project has 5 main steps: (1) determine a set of hurricane scenarios for use in evacuation and shelter models such that they appropriately represent the full range of possible events, but are few enough to allow detailed analysis with each; (2) conduct focus groups of key decisionmakers and stakeholders to identify and characterize appropriate decision objectives, constraints, assumptions, and possible evacuation and shelter management strategies; (3) using the focus group input, develop two mathematical optimization models?one long-term strategic and one short-term operational?for evacuation and sheltering decisions; (4) conduct surveys of affected citizens to ensure that the optimization model assumptions and results make sense; and (5) demonstrate the models through case studies in North Carolina and Florida. Any evacuation and sheltering planning effort is only as effective as its weakest link, so it requires a broad range of expertise from marine science, transportation engineering, risk modeling, optimization, and behavioral research collaborating closely. We have assembled this expertise on the project team.This project will help begin to transform the way hurricane evacuation and sheltering are conducted in the U.S., addressing many of the known limitations of the current approach. The new understanding and optimization models developed in this project will help local and state emergency managers better plan for hurricane evacuation and sheltering, thus reducing the deaths, injuries, and unnecessary expense associated with poorly planned or executed response in future hurricanes. By collaborating throughout the project with state and local emergency management departments and the American Red Cross, the key agencies in charge of hurricane evacuation and sheltering, we will ensure that study results are disseminated to practitioners as quickly and effectively as possible. Three graduate students will participate in all aspects of the research, each with at least two of the co-PIs on their committees to ensure tight integration. By providing a substantive example of truly interdisciplinary disaster research, the project will help facilitate the transformation of the well-known Disaster Research Center, historically based in sociology, into an interdisciplinary center. It will also help to launch the new interdisciplinary graduate program in Disaster Science and Management at the University of Delaware.