Rahaf Alsnih

Review of procedures associated with devising emergency evacuation plans

The incidence of freak weather and geological events, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, has increased over the past 30 years. Coupled with an increase in the populations located in the path of these natural disasters, the imminent danger posed by naturally occurring phenomena has also risen. Given the potential dangers, it is wise for policy administrators to ensure that appropriate emergency plans are in place that aim to minimize the negative consequences associated with these disasters. Effective emergency planning and management should successfully combine the skills and knowledge of law enforcement agencies and transport planners as well as the knowledge and skills of emergency planning professionals. In Australia, there has not been a thorough investigation of the emergency impacts on the transport infrastructure nor have emergency plans adequately integrated the transportation aspect. Which transport routes evacuees and emergency vehicles should use is a question that needs to be answered urgently to avoid situations where evacuees are trapped in their vehicles; in which emergency personnel are unable to gain access to the people in need; and in which emergency vehicles are not able to get onto the road network due to traffic congestion. Thus, in a case of a suburban bushfire (wildfire), a fire that may have been easily extinguished or controlled is left to engulf more bushland and increase in ferocity. The many emergency evacuation models developed are critically assessed, and the important information required to devise the models is described. It is clear, however, that more research needs to be undertaken to investigate specifically the effects of a mass evacuation on current transport networks.

Household Travel Surveys: Proposed Standards and Guidelines

Clearly some sort of guidance needs to be given in relation to design phases of travel surveys, travel survey instrument design, conducting travel surveys, and the coding and assessment of the data obtained. The benefits of these standards far outweigh the costs involved in implementation. In addition, these issues may apply equally to surveys in general; thus, demonstrating the usefulness of these standards. In this chapter, forty items in travel surveys were described. Recommendations for each item were listed along with justification for the recommendations. Standardization in other areas in survey research still needs to be conducted, thus further research efforts are required. It is also recognized that a number of the items discussed in this chapter are applicable to surveys in the United States and are not necessarily directly applicable in other countries or contexts. However, one of the challenges to the profession is to determine what of these standards can be adopted in other countries, and what needs adaptation to specific circumstances and contexts. Overall, standardization will not only make travel survey results comparable, but will enable the collection of higher quality data, by developing better survey instruments. Good survey design should lead to a reduction in the number of nonresponses, a problematic issue across all fields in social science and behavioral research.

Standardized procedures for personal travel surveys

Over the past 40 years, significant resources have been spent on collecting data for transportation planning. Often transportation agency staff and their consultants struggle with the difficulties of collecting and analyzing the survey data. The transportation planning and data communities have become increasingly concerned about declining response rates and potential sample biases in transportation surveys. Resources are potentially wasted because standards are lacking in both survey methods and assessment procedures. This report contains an assessment of the aspects of personal travel surveys that could be standardized, resulting in improvements to the quality, consistency, and accuracy of the resulting data. The results of this research will be useful to transportation practitioners in state departments of transportation (DOTs) and in Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) for preparing statistically sound data collection and management programs.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE APPLICATIONS IN TRANSPORT: THE INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

This paper focuses on the application of environmental justice principles specifically in the transport context. It begins by giving a background of the environmental justice movement and a definition, and proceeds to describe current legislative mandates in the United States. A holistic approach to transport planning is introduced to highlight the importance of the interrelationships between transport and land use planning. Current practices adopted in terms of environmental justice are illustrated from the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission report as well as a description of the data limitations that result from the models used in current analyses. The paper concludes by providing some recommendations on the areas that need to be developed to address environmental justice principles adequately, and the applicability of these principles internationally. (a)

ESTIMATING ELIGIBILITY RATES: CRUCIAL COMPONENT OF THE CALCULATION FOR RESPONSE RATES

Response rates are used by analysts to assess survey quality: higher response rates usually are desired to reduce the incidence of nonresponse bias. The response rate is defined as the ratio of the number of completed interviews divided by the number of eligible sample units. However, because of the inconsistency of the definition of response rates often quoted in travel surveys, it is difficult to state explicitly that declining response rates are the result of fewer people willing to participate in surveys or are attributed to the calculation of response rates. Most likely it is a combination of these two factors. Two well-known formulas used to calculate response rates are described: the Council of American Survey Research Organizations formula and the American Association for Public Opinion Research formula. The difference between these formulas lies in the estimate of eligible sample units among the sample units of unknown eligibility. Through examination of two call history files, the recruitment phase for two household travel surveys, eligibility rate estimates for the sample units of unknown eligibility were calculated and used in the response rate formulas. The rates of eligibility for the sample units of unknown eligibility were higher than the eligibility rates for the units of known eligibility. These results were not expected and further confirm that agencies must treat units of unknown eligibility carefully when calculating response rates.