Flood impacts on road transportation using microscopic traffic modelling technique

Abstract

The research presented in this paper proposes a novel methodology for modelling the impacts of floods on traffic. Often flooding is a complex combination of various causes (coastal, fluvial and pluvial). Further, transportation systems are very sensitive to external disturbances. There is insufficient knowledge on the interactions in these complex and dynamic systems. This paper proposes a methodology for integrating a flood model (MIKE Flood) and a traffic model (SUMO). Traffic on inundated roads will be interrupted or delayed according to the manner of flood propagation. As a consequence, some trips will be cancelled or rerouted and other trips will be indirectly affected. A comparison between the baseline and a flood scenario yields the impacts of that flood on traffic, estimated in terms of lost business hours, additional fuel consumption, and additional CO2 emissions. The outcome suggests that the proposed methodology can help to quantify the flood impact on transportation.