Time-varying road network design for urban hazmat transportation

Abstract

Hazmat transportation in cities faces significant risks that may cause catastrophic losses to humans. From the perspective of the regulator, the main responsibility is to mitigate hazmat transport risk by determining the availability of road networks to hazmat carriers. Based on the time-variant population distribution, the hazmat transport risk was assessed via the total population exposure associated with the resident and variable populations at different times. We propose a risk-minimizing urban hazmat road network design model for multiple types of hazmats, considering time-varying traffic. The model was applied to a realistic case study of hazmat transportation in a densely populated urban area with complex traffic in Shanghai, China.

Keywords

• Hazmat transport
• Road closure
• Time-varying traffic
• Network design
• Population exposure
• Urban environment