Optimizing the Evacuation for the City of Eau Claire, WI

Abstract

Natural disasters and other related emergencies are of major concern for communities. It is crucial for the city to evacuate its citizens from danger, in the event of an emergency. Therefore, we have created a mathematical model based on Operations Research Theory and Graph Theory that can construct an evacuation plan to perform the optimal evacuation for a variety of emergency situations. We designed a program using the Java programming language that dynamically implements Dijkstra?s algorithm and the Simplex Method to efficiently calculate the optimal solution of evacuation with minimal user interface. Specifically, the Emergency Management Officers of the City of Eau Claire will be able to implement this software during times of emergency in the most efficient way.