Understanding evacuation response behavior is critical for public officials in deciding when toissue emergency evacuation orders during an impending hurricane. Such behavior is typicallymeasured by an evacuation response curve that represents the proportion of total evacuationdemand over time during evacuation. This study analyzes evacuation behavior and constructs anevacuation response curve based on traffic data collected during Hurricane Irene (2011) in CapeMay County, New Jersey. The evacuation response curve follows a general S-shape with sharpupward changes in slope following the issuance of mandatory evacuation notices. The sharpupward changes in slope represent quick response behavior, which may be in part caused by aneasily mobilized tourist population, lack of hurricane evacuation experience, and/or the nature ofthe location, which in this case is a rural area with limited evacuation routes. Moreover, thewidely used S-curves with different mathematical functions and the state-of-art behavior modelsare calibrated and compared with empirical data. The results show that the calibrated S-curveswith Logit and Rayleigh functions fit empirical data better. The evacuation behavior analysis andcalibrated evacuation response models based on this recent Hurricane evacuation event maybenefit evacuation planning in similar areas. In addition, traffic data used in this study may alsobe valuable for the comparative analysis of traffic patterns between the evacuation periods andregular weekdays/weekends.
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