Ayberk Kocatepe

Metadata-based Needs Assessment for Emergency Transportation Operations with a Focus on an Aging Population: A Case Study in Florida

Abstract In the aftermath of disasters, evacuating aging victims and maintaining an optimal flow of critical resources in order to serve their needs becomes problematic, especially for Gulf Coast states in the USA such as Florida, where more than 6.9 million (36.9%) of the population are over age 50. Scanning the literature, there is no substantial prior work that has synthesized the requirements for a multi-modal emergency needs assessment that could facilitate the safe and accessible evacuation of aging people, and optimize the flow of resources into the affected region to satisfy the needs of those who remain. This paper presents a review of the aging population-focused emergency literature utilizing a knowledge base development methodology supported with a geographic information system-based case study application set in Florida. Importance is given to both ensuring the resiliency of the transportation infrastructure and meeting the needs of aging populations. As a result of this metadata-based analysis, critical research needs and challenges are presented with planning recommendations and future research directions. Results clearly indicate that transportation agencies should focus on clear and fast dissemination of disaster-related information to the aging populations. The use of paratransit services for evacuating aging people, especially those living independently and/or in rural areas, is also found to be of paramount importance.

The Reach and Influence of DOT Twitter Accounts: A Case Study in Florida

Over the last decade, social networks have emerged as an important tool which helps communicate vital information on to the public. Especially the involvement of federal, state and other regional agencies in the social media can enable us to determine new and fast ways to provide sufficient information to the public in the case of emergencies. This paper evaluates the influence of state DOT Twitter accounts and suggests GIS-based approaches to understand the spatial reach of the disseminated information. This helps DOT accounts determine efficient ways to disseminate information to the public. Results are presented with a case study application set on the District 3 of the State of Florida, as identified by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT). Accessibility, reach, quality and influence of the FDOT District 3 Twitter account are analyzed, and several future research directions are identified.

Transportation Accessibility Assessment of Critical Emergency Facilities: Aging Population-Focused Case Studies in Florida

Over the last two decades, the task of providing transportation accessibility for aging people has been a growing concern as that population is rapidly expanding. From this standpoint, serious challenges arise when we consider ensuring aging people’s transportation-based accessibility to critical emergency facilities such as hurricane shelters. An efficient strategy to address this problem involves using Geographical Information Systems (GIS)-based tools in order to evaluate the available transportation network in conjunction with the spatial distribution of aging people, and critical emergency facilities, plus regional traffic characteristics. This study develops a Geographical Information Systems (GIS)-based methodology to measure and assess the transportation accessibility of these critical facilities through a diverse set of case study applications in the State of Florida. Within this evaluation, spatially detailed county-based accessibility scores are calculated with respect to designated hurricane shelters (both regular and special needs shelters) using both static and dynamic travel times between population block groups and critical facilities. Because aging of the Baby Boom generation (people born between 1946 and 1964) is expected to produce a 79 % increase in the number of people over the age of 65 in the next two decades, the proposed methodology and case studies can inform transportation agencies’ efforts to develop efficient aging-focused transportation and accessibility plans.

Aging Population–Focused Accessibility Assessment of Multimodal Facilities in Florida

A significant responsibility of officials involved in transportation planning is ensuring people’s accessibility to multimodal facilities. This challenging task depends on the available transportation infrastructure as well as the overall population, traffic, roadway, and regional characteristics. Such planning takes on additional complexity when aging populations are considered because any extra time that they incur in reaching these facilities can be especially confounding in light of their potential health and other safety concerns. As such, there is a need for transportation plans to have a multimodal transportation assessment component that specifically focuses on the accessibility of aging people to critical facilities. To accomplish this goal, this paper describes a geographic information systems–based methodology for measuring the aging population–focused accessibility to multimodal facilities in Florida. Spatially detailed population block- and county-based accessibility scores are calculated with respect to key intermodal facility types (airports, bus stations, and railway and ferry stations) and visually assessed by geographic information system maps. The knowledge obtained from this accessibility analysis can successfully contribute to the development of more reliable aging population–focused multimodal transportation plans, as the analysis points to specific areas where accessibility could be improved.

Assessment of the hurricane-induced power outages from a demographic, socioeconomic, and transportation perspective

Natural disasters have devastating effects on the infrastructure and disrupt every aspect of daily life in the regions they hit. To alleviate problems caused by these disasters, first an impact assessment is needed. As such, this paper focuses on a two-step methodology to identify the impact of Hurricane Hermine on the City of Tallahassee, the capital of Florida. The regional and socioeconomic variations in the Hermine’s impact were studied via spatially and statistically analyzing power outages. First step includes a spatial analysis to illustrate the magnitude of customers affected by power outages together with a clustering analysis. This step aims to determine whether the customers affected from outages are clustered or not. Second step involves a Bayesian spatial autoregressive model in order to identify the effects of several demographic-, socioeconomic-, and transportation-related variables on the magnitude of customers affected by power outages. Results showed that customers affected by outages are spatially clustered at particular regions rather than being dispersed. This indicates the need to pinpoint such vulnerable locations and develop strategies to reduce hurricane-induced disruptions. Furthermore, the increase in the magnitude of affected customers was found to be associated with several variables such as the power network and total generated trips as well as the demographic factors. The information gained from the findings of this study can assist emergency officials in identifying critical and/or less resilient regions, and determining those demographic and socioeconomic groups which were relatively more affected by the consequences of hurricanes than others.

Geographic Information System–Based Spatial and Statistical Analysis of Severe Crash Hotspot Accessibility to Hospitals

Previous studies have examined hospital accessibility issues, and other work has exhaustively investigated several aspects of roadway crashes, such as their severity and frequency, possible causal factors, and their clustering on networks. However, the nature of the relationship between them, in the accessibility of severe crash hotspots to hospitals with emergency services, is relatively unexplored. Looking at both elements simultaneously is especially critical, given the need to provide the necessary aid to crash victims in a timely manner to help reduce roadway deaths. To the authors’ knowledge, such an assessment has not been attempted before. The objective of this study was twofold. First, the study investigated accessibility through the use of geographic information systems and statistical analysis to detect high-risk locations. Second, the study used hierarchical multinomial logistic regression analysis to examine several environmental, traffic, and human factors to identify the determinants of the crashes that constitute hotspots. The results show that several roadway segments portend an elevated threat of injury and fatalities for drivers and passengers, not only due to a higher probability of being severely injured, but also because of the low accessibility to hospitals having emergency services. The results suggest that particular spatial, traffic, and roadway factors, such as intersection presence or speed limits, substantially imperil traffic safety. The knowledge gained from this study can help agencies and officials pinpoint and investigate high-risk locations to enhance the safety of roadway users.

Benefits of Managing the Capacity of Special Needs Shelters with Cross-County Collaboration

A significant task of planners involved in emergency disaster management is planning for the optimal assignment of people to emergency shelters. This complex task depends on the available infrastructure and roadway characteristics and can take on additional complexity when older populations are considered because their health conditions may deteriorate during a disaster. Older people may also require special assistance even though they are not listed in the registries of people with special needs. This paper specifically focuses on the assignment of older populations to shelters. The paper presents a spatial optimization methodology based on data from a geographic information system. The focus is on the segment of the population 85 years old and older and on the use of potential benefits of cross-county collaboration in special needs shelter (SpNS) management. Such collaboration can help in using additional shelter capacity between neighboring counties (a) to overcome the lack of capacity in a county and (b) to assign the demand to a close shelter across county borders. The methodology was applied to a case study of five counties in the Florida Panhandle. Because the SpNS demand for the 85+ age group was not known exactly, a sensitivity analysis was conducted for different demand levels. From an emergency management perspective, this type of cross-county utilization can provide a means to use existing regular shelters in multiple counties to serve the 85+ population.

Measuring the accessibility of critical facilities in the presence of hurricane-related roadway closures and an approach for predicting future roadway disruptions

Roadway closures magnify the adverse effects of disasters on people since any type of such disruption increases the emergency response travel time (ERTT), which is of central importance for the safety and survival of the affected people. Especially in the State of Florida, high winds due to hurricanes, such as the Hurricane Hermine, lead to notable roadway disruptions and closures that compel special attention. As such, in this paper, the accessibility of emergency response facilities, such as police stations, fire stations and hospitals in the City of Tallahassee, the capital of Florida, was extensively studied using real-life data on roadway closures during Hurricane Hermine. A new metric, namely Accessibility Decrease Index, was proposed, which measures the change in ERTT before and in the aftermath of a hurricane such as Hermine. Results clearly show those regions with reduced emergency response facility accessibility and roadways under a disruption risk in the 1-week window after Hermine hit Tallahassee. City officials can pinpoint these critical locations for future improvements and identify those critical roadways, which are under a risk of disruption due to the impact of the hurricane. This information can be utilized to improve emergency response plans by improving the roadway infrastructure and providing alternative routes to public.

Advanced electricity load forecasting combining electricity and transportation network

Load forecasting plays a very crucial role in many aspects of electric power systems including the economic and social benefits. Previously, there have been many studies involving load forecasting using time series approach, including weather-load relationships. In one such approach to predict load, this paper investigates through different structures that aim to relate various daily parameters. These parameters include temperature, humidity and solar radiation that comprises the weather data. Along with natural phenomenon as weather, physical aspects such as traffic flow are also considered. Based on the relationship, a prediction algorithm is applied to check if prediction error decreases when such external factors are considered. Electricity consumption data is collected from the City of Tallahassee utilities. Traffic count is provided by the Florida Department of Transportation. Moreover, the weather data is obtained from Tallahassee regional Airport weather station. This paper aims to study and establish a cause and effect relationship between the mentioned variables using different causality models and to forecast load based on the external variables. Based on the relationship, a prediction algorithm is applied to check if prediction error decreases when such external factors are considered.