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Contraflow in Transportation Network

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Encyclopedia of GIS

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Synonyms

Lane reversal; Counterflow; Road networks; Networks, spatial; Evacuation routes; Emergency response

Definition

Contraflow is a method designed to increase the capacity of transportation roads toward a certain direction by reversing the opposite direction of road segments. Figure 1shows a change of road direction under contraflow operation. Contraflow has been primarily used as a part of evacuation schemes. Incoming lanes are reversed to an outbound direction from an affected area during an evacuation to increase the efficiency of traffic movement. When contraflow is implemented on a road network, a significant amount of resources is required in terms of manpower and safety facilities. Automated contraflow execution requires controlled access at both starting and end points of a road. Manual execution requires police officers and barricade trucks. Contraflow planners also need to take into account other factors from the perspectives of planning, design, operation, and...

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Recommended Reading

  1. Kim, S., Shekhar, S.: Contraflow network reconfiguration for evacuation planning: A summary of results. In: Proceedings of the 13th ACM Symposium on Advances in Geographic Information Systems. pp. 250–259 (2005)

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  3. Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. 2004 performance of regional high-occupancy vehicle facilities on freeways in the washington region. Analysis of Person and Vehicle Volumes. (2005)

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  4. Theodoulou, G., Wolshon, B.: Alternative methods to increase the effectiveness of freeway contraflow evacuation. J. Trans. Res. Board. Transportation Research Record 1865, 48–56 (2004)

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  5. Tuydes, H., Ziliaskopoulos, A.: Network re-design to optimize evacuation contraflow. Technical Report 04-4715, Presented at 83rd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, (2004)

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  6. Wolshon, B.: One-way-out: Contraflow freeway operation for hurricane evacuation. Nat. Hazard Rev. 2(3), 105–112 (2001)

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  7. Wolshon, B., Urbina, E., Levitan, M.: National review of hurricane evacuation plans and policies. Technical report, Hurricane Center, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (2002)

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Sangho Kim

Authors
  1. Sangho Kim
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA

    Shashi Shekhar (McKnight Distinguished University Professor) (McKnight Distinguished University Professor)

  2. Management Science and Information Systems Department, Rutgers Business School Newark and New Brunswick Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA

    Hui Xiong (Assistant Professor) (Assistant Professor)

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© 2008 Springer-Verlag

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Kim, S. (2008). Contraflow in Transportation Network. In: Shekhar, S., Xiong, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of GIS. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35973-1_211

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