The havoc inflicted by natural disasters, particularly hurricanes, can debilitate a community. Impairment of road systems in particular often leads to a failure in the ability to transport people, equipment, and resources needed for the restoration of infrastructure.
Potentially, after a hurricane hits a transportation agency's region, the road systems may be in complete disorder leaving some communities stranded. The goal of the effort is to improve hurricane preparedness and recovery of the Virginia Department of Transportation through the identification of planning and management options and the assessment and evaluation of the associated costs, benefits, and risks.
The Virginia Department of Transportations (VDOT) may not have the capacity to handle the damage produced by a hurricane. The development of a better planning system may enable VDOT to restore transportation systems more quickly. An important objective of this project is to assess the risks, costs, and benefits of different systems vulnerable to hurricanes. The developed process will allow VDOT to look at preparation and recovery differently based upon cost, time of implementation, resources available, and consequences of each alternative for the various magnitudes of hurricanes.
Lastly, the project addresses the evaluation of alternative schedules for the recovery of interstate and primary roads after a hurricane. Intersections are considered when developing alternatives. The recovery plan will be based on both critical facilities and the path of recovery with the most connectivity, finding the intersections that connect the most critical facilities the most efficiently. An intersection is where two or more roads intersect and a road segment is the area between two intersections. A critical facility is a facility, such as a hospital or school, that is critical to the community's well being and ability to return to normal after a hurricane.
The final results of this project are in documents and software that will help VDOT choose among policies in order to minimize cost, implementation time, and risk. These documents and software will be maintained at the University of Virginia and accessible on the Internet so that VDOT has continuous access to them into the future.