Urban evacuation in seismic emergency conditions

One particular, considerably complex, problem within the field of transportation studies is that of spontaneous or planned urban evacuation induced by a catastrophic event which has either been forecast or has just occurred. The difficulties involved in such an analysis are linked to the highly concentrated demand with characteristics (origin, destination and starting time) that are not known in advance and which are conditioned by panic, which uses a mobility network that may sometimes have been damaged by the event itself or is being used by rescue vehicles whose movements must obviously take priority. The work presented herein examines the problems of urban evacuation planning and management with reference to specific international literature. The document is structured over four paragraphs: the first deals with the general aspects, highlighting the differences between a planned evacuation and a spontaneous one; the second and third examine, respectively, the models used to represent the phenomenon and the influence of the population’s behaviour; the last paragraph discusses the possibility of improving the road system by introducing specific traffic regulations.