Ridesharing Evacuation Model of Disaster Response

Abstract: Timely evacuation is crucial to disaster response, as people can avoid suffering and loss of lives when a major disaster happens. With the development of sharing economy, ridesharing has the advantage of reducing congestion, saving travel time, and optimizing transportation mode to improve disaster evacuation efficiency. The paper proposes to integrate the concept of ridesharing into evacuation and develops a mixed-integer programming model for this problem. A real-world case study based on Houston is used to validate the proposed model. A series of instances are designed to compare the evacuation efficiency using two indicators, evacuation percentage and average travel distance. Results reveal that increasing the number of vehicles to help carless individuals might not be the most efficient method in this model. Moreover, this model offers a specific response strategy based on different disaster scales, which not only develops a better evacuation plan for the people but also provides relief agencies insights on resource utilization.