Modeling the traffic disruption caused by pluvial flash flood on intra-urban road network.

Pluvial flash flood (PFF) can cause serious traffic disruption in big cities. We conducted interdisciplinary research by integrating flood modeling and traffic analysis to reveal the spatiotemporal pattern of the interplay between these two processes. A simplified simulation tool, which is capable of building a road network model, assigning trip paths with the effect of road closures, and evaluating travel delay and vehicle volume redistribution in a given PFF scenario, was developed to capture the traffic disruption in the face of PFF events. Modeling outputs from a case study in the city center of Shanghai showed that the delay of vehicles diverted to dry links or trapped in flooded links may reach 0.5 to 8 times the travel time in no-flood scenarios. Overall, approximately 1-7% of vehicle volumes on flooded links would be redistributed onto dry links (more likely major arterial roads). However, the vehicle volume variation during each time interval demonstrated evident disparity with the spatiotemporal change of flood inundations. Simulating and mapping the congestion can largely facilitate the identification of vulnerable links. Future research will test the method in other intra-urban areas and try to bridge the gap between modeling outputs and smart city planning and management.