Large-scale evacuations constitute common life-saving exercises that are activated in many disaster response campaigns. Their effectiveness is often inhibited by traffic congestion, disrupted and imperfect coordination mechanisms, and the poor state of the underlying transportation networks. To address this problem, this paper presents a hybrid simulation-optimisation methodology to optimise evacuation response strategies through demand staging and signal phasing. We introduce a pre-planning model that evaluates evacuation policies, using a low-level dynamic traffic assignment model that captures the effects of congestion, queuing and vehicle spillback. Optimal strategies are determined using derivative-free optimisation algorithms, applied to an evacuation problem based on a benchmark dataset. The effects of varying the number of activated paths and the frequency of departure under different network conditions are observed. Our analysis indicates that combined departure time scheduling and signal phasing is a promising method to improve evacuation efficiency when compared to a worst-case benchmark scenario.

中文翻译：

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受限城市交通网络中快速疏散策略的优化设计

大规模疏散是常见的救生演习，在许多灾害应对活动中都被激活。它们的有效性往往受到交通拥堵、中断和不完善的协调机制以及底层交通网络状况不佳的抑制。为了解决这个问题，本文提出了一种混合模拟优化方法，通过需求分段和信号相位优化疏散响应策略。我们引入了一个评估疏散政策的预规划模型，使用低级动态交通分配模型来捕捉拥堵、排队和车辆溢出的影响。最佳策略是使用无导数优化算法确定的，应用于基于基准数据集的疏散问题。观察了在不同网络条件下改变激活路径数量和离开频率的影响。我们的分析表明，与最坏情况的基准情景相比，组合出发时间调度和信号相位是提高疏散效率的一种有前途的方法。