Estimation of the logit model for the online contraflow problem

Abstract

Contraflow or lane reversal is an efficient way for increasing the outbound capacity of a network by reversing the direction of in‐bound roads during evacuations. Hence, it can be considered as a potential remedy for solving congestion problems during evacuation in the context of homeland security, natural disasters and urban evacuations, especially in response to an expected disaster. Most of the contraflow studies are performed offline, thus strategies are generated beforehand for future implementation. Online contraflow models, however, would be often computationally demanding and time‐consuming. This study contributes to the state of the art of contraflow modelling in two regards. First, it focuses on the calibration of a Logit choice model which predicts the online contraflow directions of strategic lanes based on the set of directions obtained from offline scenarios. This is the first effort to adjust offline results to be applied for an online case. The second contribution of this paper is the generation of calibration data set from a novel approach through simulation. The calibrated Logit model is then tested for the network of the City of Fort Worth, Texas. The results show a high performance of this approach to generating beneficial strategies, including an increase in up to 16% in throughput compared to no contraflow case.

First published online: 10 Feb 2011