Florida has ‘most limited’ disaster evacuation routes: study

Florida has 20 of the top 100 communities in the US that offer limited evacuation routes for natural disasters, says StreetLight Data. The company analysed 30,000 towns with populations under 40,000 with the aim of better preparing communities for floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. The top 100 communities was ranked by ‘evacuation risk’, which was determined by how many of the location’s daily trips enter and exit the town and via what route(s), adjusted for the number of available exits and overall populat
August 29, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

Florida has 20 of the top 100 communities in the US that offer limited evacuation routes for natural disasters, says StreetLight Data.

The company analysed 30,000 towns with populations under 40,000 with the aim of better preparing communities for floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. The top 100 communities was ranked by ‘evacuation risk’, which was determined by how many of the location’s daily trips enter and exit the town and via what route(s), adjusted for the number of available exits and overall population.

Paul Friedman, StreetLight’s chief technical officer, says: “Transportation infrastructure, and sharing information about transportation options, is one part of the complex requirements of disaster and evacuation preparation. We hope this data can be a useful support to those working in this challenging field.”

Other states that have the most evacuation-challenged towns include California (14 communities), Arizona (8), Texas (6) and Washington (also 6).

Additionally, findings revealed the most constrained evacuation routes are Camano (Washington), Hilton Head Island (South Carolina), Mercer Island (Washington), Hutchinson Island South (Florida) and Sanibel (Florida).

Urban Traffic Control

Related Content

  • Integrating ferry transport into smart ticketing
    March 1, 2013
    Transport authorities are increasingly looking to integrate ferry travel into the mix of public transport. David Crawford finds out more. The new A$370m (US$398m) Opal public transport smartcard system being installed by the Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS)-led Pearl consortium in Sydney is geographically the largest in the world to date. The consortium includes the Commonwealth Bank of Australia; Australian retail payment system provider ePay; Australian infrastructure engineering company Downer Group; a
    Read More
  • Gig economy drivers and riders at increased risk of collisions, warns UCL
    September 3, 2018
    Self-employed courier or taxi drivers who get their work through apps could be more likely to be involved in a collision, says a new study. The University College London (UCL) research found 63% of ‘gig’ economy respondents – who are not paid a salary - are not provided with safety training about managing risks on the road. The emerging issues for management of occupational road risk in a changing economy: A survey of gig economy drivers, riders and their managers also revealed 65% of drivers did not
    Read More
  • Drivewyze & One.network start Oregon safety project
    March 29, 2024
    Umatilla County deal will give truck drivers in-cab, real-time road closure alerts
    Read More
  • Caltrans trials Xerox’s Passenger Detection System
    October 30, 2015
    Xerox’s Passenger Detection System has been trialled in California and compared with the state’s team of human counters giving some interesting results, as Colin Sowman discovers. Like others adopting high-occupancy and high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes for congestion management, Caltrans has faced challenges with compliance in what has been effectively an ‘honour system’ with drivers trusted to set their tags correctly or comply with the multi-passenger requirement.
    Read More

Highlighted Content