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(dramatic music)

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- [Announcer] Approximately
seven million people

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live on the Texas coast.

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When the hurricane threatens to stay,

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moving that population out of
harm's way can be a challenge.

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The Center for Transportation Research

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and the Texas Department of Transportation

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are investigating different ways

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to create a fail safe
information transfer system.

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- You know, we want to make sure

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that the evacuation routes are flowing

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as smoothly as possible.

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We wanna make sure that
if there's any accidents,

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that those get prioritized
to try to clear off

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any accidents that may be blocking lanes

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on these critical evacuation routes.

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We also wanna make sure

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that people are utilizing all these routes

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to their full capability.

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And so in the project
we used something called

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an analytical hierarchy process,

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which is a way for
trying to make decisions

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when there's lots of these
different complex factors

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that are there.

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And so we hope that this
process will help TxDOT

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in trying to come up with
evacuation management policies

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that take into account

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all of these different
factors that are important.

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- There was some workshops
and interviews and outreach,

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and then for the different
people who are involved,

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the districts, they wanted
to know what information

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was out there and whatever devices

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that they had already in place,

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and then put it together

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and then give different scenarios

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on how we could use it
in an effective manner.

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And also to be able to
push out information

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to the traveling public
for evacuation times,

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and also for them to be able to come back

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into their various regions
after the evacuations.

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- The main outcome of this project

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is a framework for TxDOT to determine

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what the best path forward is,

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to balance these different criteria,

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to see what the role
is of new technologies,

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to try to identify what
the critical corridors are

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for particular events,
come up with a process

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and a framework that they could use

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to try to, you know, to figure out how

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to manage things best given

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the different needs that the agency has.

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- It could be a two-pronged approach.

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For us, we may be looking at maybe gaps

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in the second or tier two roads
versus already or tier one.

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We have cameras and we
have DMS signs already

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on our major corridors.

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But this secondary or
smaller evacuation route

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we may be looking at how do
we put more cameras there?

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- Evacuations are often an
unfamiliar and scary time,

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and so people don't always
know the best routes

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for that to be taking.

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And so one of the key findings

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is that technologies can play a big role

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in making this process work a lot better.

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- [Announcer] For more information

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and to find the publication
for this project,

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please visit the TxDOT Research Library

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at the link shown below.