pacific nw transportation consortium region 10 Pactrans

Agent-based Modeling Framework for Wildfire Evacuation in Damaged Transportation Settings

PI: Ji Yun Lee (WSU), jiyun.lee@wsu.edu, ORCID: 0000-0003-2313-8371

Co PIs: none

AMOUNT & MATCH: $40,000 from PacTrans; $40,000 Match

PERFORMANCE PERIOD: 3/16/2021 – 3/15/2022

STATUS: Completed

CATEGORIES: Wildfire, Evacuation, Transportation

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DESCRIPTION: The project develops an agent-based modeling framework for wildfire evacuation in damaged transportation settings aimed at predicting traffic conditions during an evacuation and identifying the critical parts of transportation network for pre-fire risk mitigation actions. To address the gaps identified in existing literature, the framework integrates wildfire simulation and vulnerability assessment with ABM to adequately represent both human behavior during an evacuation and time-dependent network functionality in microscopic traffic simulation. The framework consists of four parts: wildfire simulation, vulnerability assessment, evacuation model, and traffic simulation. All the variables considered in the framework are updated at a fixed time step: bride damage state and its traffic carrying capacity are updated based on fire propagation measured at every time step; each agent updates its state during an evacuation; and microscopic traffic simulation coupled with ABM is performed based on the time-dependent network functionality and the updated locations of all agents. Private vehicles are the primary form of mobility for people living in wildfire prone areas. We therefore focus on capturing vehicle use and vehicular traffic in our modeling without considering pedestrian behaviors. Final results will be time-dependent traffic maps to identify the critical parts of transportation network that are the most vulnerable to wildfires and have great potential for causing traffic congestion during an evacuation. Moreover, the total number of evacuating agents during a given time period will also be obtained as a final result, which could be used to determine the bridges that need to be strengthened in order to minimize human losses during wildfire evacuation.