What Is an Effective Evacuation Operation?

Evacuation plans are traditionally based on empirical knowledge and local experience. Many studies are underway to improve and, even, optimize the process of evacuation planning and operations. To this end, a commonly accepted set of well-defined measures of effectiveness (MOEs) for evacuation is necessary. To guide various optimization processes and assess their benefits, this paper examines MOEs in literature, whether implicitly assumed or explicitly defined, and subsequently proposes a comprehensive four-tier MOE framework, taking into consideration of evacuation time, cumulative exposure, and temporal/spatial risk factors. For each tier of MOE, the optimization formulation is presented.