Optimizing evacuation instructions while anticipating traveler compliance behavior

Instructing evacuees on their departure time, destination and route can lead to more efficient traffic operations. Empirical findings on evacuation behavior support the view that in practice a share of travelers decides not to comply, while current evacuation plan optimization techniques are limited to assessing mandatory evacuation under the assumption of full compliance. In this contribution we show I) how traveler compliance behavior affects evacuation efficiency, and II) how evacuation efficiency can be improved in case of partial compliance when this traveler compliance is anticipated on. The optimization method and case study application presented here underline the relevance and importance of capturing traveler compliance behavior, as this has a large impact upon the evacuation efficiency.