Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 396248, 18 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/396248
Research Article

A Simulation-Based Dynamic Stochastic Route Choice Model for Evacuation

School of Transportation, Southeast University, No. 2, Sipailou, Nanjing 210096, China

Received 7 May 2012; Accepted 25 July 2012

Academic Editor: Wuhong Wang

Copyright © 2012 Xing Zhao et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This paper establishes a dynamic stochastic route choice model for evacuation to simulate the propagation process of traffic flow and estimate the stochastic route choice under evacuation situations. The model contains a lane-group-based cell transmission model (CTM) which sets different traffic capacities for links with different turning movements to flow out in an evacuation situation, an actual impedance model which is to obtain the impedance of each route in time units at each time interval and a stochastic route choice model according to the probit-based stochastic user equilibrium. In this model, vehicles loading at each origin at each time interval are assumed to choose an evacuation route under determinate road network, signal design, and OD demand. As a case study, the proposed model is validated on the network nearby Nanjing Olympic Center after the opening ceremony of the 10th National Games of the People's Republic of China. The traffic volumes and clearing time at five exit points of the evacuation zone are calculated by the model to compare with survey data. The results show that this model can appropriately simulate the dynamic route choice and evolution process of the traffic flow on the network in an evacuation situation.