Large-scale Zone-based Evacuation Planning: Generating Convergent and Non-Preemptive Evacuation Plans via Column Generation

Abstract

In zone-based evacuations, the evacuated region is divided into zones, and vehicles follow the single evacuation path assigned to their corresponding zone. Ideally, these evacuation paths converge at intersections to reduce driver hesitation; and non-preemptive schedules ensure that the evacuation of a zone proceeds without interruptions once it starts. We present a column-generation algorithm that produces convergent and non-preemptive evacuation plans in real large-scale evacuation scenarios. Furthermore, we compare our algorithm against existing models that produce convergent paths or non-preemptive schedules separately. Finally, we use a traffic simulator to evaluate the quality of the generated plans.