The development of evacuation plans should be done well in advance of the occurrence of the emergency and be revised during the emergency itself based on the details and actual conditions of the emergency evacuation on the ground. The ability to effectively respond to or recover from an emergency situation is strongly related to how actively the transportation system can be managed.

Several modeling approaches have been utilized to address the performance of the transportation system and estimate evacuation times. However, simulation-based models are among the most powerful tools that could be applied for accurately and realistically capturing driver-network interactions. Nevertheless, there are some challenges facing the current simulation-based modeling efforts. These challenges include the high cost associated with obtaining the software, training staff, and updating the models to reflect changes on the ground. Also, the availability of data needed for evacuation simulation modeling, which is not usually covered in the transportation census database, continues to be an obstacle.

This research aims to develop a methodology for supporting effective decision making and testing different emergency scenarios while taking into account the various factors and their effect on public safety. The focus of this research is on developing an evacuation model for urban areas utilizing the resources available for the different Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO's) and local data.