01479191

Component

https://doi.org/10.3141/2376-07

http://scholar.google.com...ashi&publication_year=2013

The major transit agency in Honolulu, Hawaii, is Oahu Transit Services, Inc., also known as TheBus. The agency implemented emergency evacuation procedures because of tsunamis triggered by earthquakes in Chile in 2010 and Japan in 2011. Although the damage in Hawaii was minimal in both events, the experience provided important lessons for emergency operations. This paper provides a brief account of the events and describes the transit agency and its procedures for emergency evacuation. The important lessons for Honolulu and other cities that have bus transit operations and are concerned about evacuation are also discussed. It is important that standard operating procedures be well documented and disseminated. It is also critical to conduct after-action reports to ensure that key problems and challenges are identified; potential solutions are generated, discussed, and implemented; and organizational learning occurs. Training and experience at all levels are important, but creating an ethos of public service and professionalism is essential for effective disaster response. Although the lessons are applicable to tsunamis in Hawaii, these lessons are potentially valuable for other types of hazards in other locations.

01505854

13-4819

English

pp 56–62

2013

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

9780309286954

Print

Figures (2) ; References (12) ; Tables (2)

Bus transit; Disasters and emergency operations; Evacuation; Lessons learned; Public transit; Tsunamis

Honolulu (Hawaii)

Operations and Traffic Management; Public Transportation; Security and Emergencies; I70: Traffic and Transport

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Feb 5 2013 12:56PM

• Empirical Evacuation Response Curve During Hurricane Irene in Cape May County, New Jersey
• Improving Transportation Resource Coordination for Multimodal Evacuation Planning: Literature Review and Research Agenda
• Modeling of Bus Transit Driver Availability for Effective Emergency Evacuation in Disaster Relief
• No-Notice Evacuation Management: Ramp Closures Under Varying Budgets and Demand Scenarios
• Predictive Quality of a Time-Dependent Sequential Logit Evacuation Demand Model
• Roundabout Performance Evaluation in a Network Evacuation: A Case of Intelligent Decomposed Network Simulations
• Sensitivity of Evacuation Performance Estimates to Evacuee Route Choice Behavior
• Using National Household Travel Survey Data for the Assessment of Transportation System Vulnerabilities