Presentation Title

Examining Freeway Bottleneck Features During A Mass Evacuation

Presentation Abstract

Traffic features were investigated for a bottleneck that was observed on a 30-mile northbound section of Florida’s Turnpike (SR-91) during the mass evacuation in advance of Hurricane Irma that occurred in September 2017. Three distinct time periods were identified during which a bottleneck was active at the service plaza off-ramp, for a total of 27.5 hours during the evacuation period. Traffic flow features that characterized the bottleneck, curves of cumulative vehicle count, and occupancy were utilized. Results demonstrate distinct queued and free flowing traffic states between adjacent detectors in the vicinity of an off-ramp into a service plaza. The apparent bottleneck discharge features presented substantially lower flows than what would be expected for a limited access facility with high operational speeds. Findings include important considerations for evacuation planning and modelling as roadway traffic features may only present themselves during evacuations and if not accounted for may drastically reduce the precision of models and simulations.

Speaker Bio

Brian Staes, E.I., is a graduate research assistant under the direction of Dr. Robert L. Bertini at Oregon State University. He recently finished his master’s degree in transportation engineering and his master’s thesis examined a peculiar bottleneck during a mass evacuation in the State of Florida. He graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) with a bachelor’s in civil engineering in 2018. He was the former Vice President for the Institute of Transportation Engineering (ITE) University of South Florida student chapter. His area of focus for his PhD is transportation engineering specifically identifying variations in limited access facility traffic flow theory during evacuations.

Speaker Headshot

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