In its early years, KLD built an evacuation scenario model designated DYNEV for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and developed it further over the following years. The model had been tested for realism independently, and found to comport with observations.
Evacuation models differ from standard origin-destination (O/D) assignment models in that the objective is generally to identify the most suitable paths to allow drivers to move beyond a certain distance from an incident, for instance 10 miles or more from a nuclear power plant. Because many scenarios have to be considered (weather, time of day, traffic load at the time of the incident, fraction of drivers needing to pick up family before evacuating, etc.), it is vital that the model be able to operate at relatively high speed, take into account the capacity of the road system, produce effective metrics and visuals, and interface with a scenario manager and data base.
The DYNEV system accomplished this, and has been used as a tool in determining evacuation time estimates (ETEs) for contingency planning at nuclear power plants, hurricanes, hazardous materials incidents, and terrorist incidents. KLD Associates is proud that its model-building capabilities contributed the tool for these applications.