Contraflow on major evacuation routes is one approach that has been adopted in many Gulf Coast states for hurricane evacuation. The idea is to reverse one direction of the roadway to accommodate the often substantially increased travel demand moving away from the impact area. Efficient planning and operation is critical to a successful contraflow implementation. The purpose of this paper was to develop a decision support system for contraflow evacuation planning for use by the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT). User requirements were identified, and a literature review was conducted to determine applicable existing algorithms. A working prototype system was then constructed. The practical value of this paper is to provide state transportation officials with an effective computer-based tool for pre-planning and evaluating possible responses to such an event.
['Gary P. Moynihan', 'Daniel J. Fonseca']
Contraflow evacuation e-planning system for I-65 in Alabama