Spatiotemporal Modeling of Connected Vehicle Data: An Application to Non-Congregate Shelter Planning During Hurricane-Pandemics

The growing complexity of natural disasters, intensified by climate change, has amplified the challenges of managing emergency shelter demand. Accurate shelter demand forecasting is crucial to optimize resource allocation, prevent overcrowding, and ensure evacuee safety, particularly during concurrent disasters like hurricanes and pandemics. Real-time decision-making during evacuations remains a significant challenge due to dynamic evacuation behaviors and evolving disaster conditions. This study introduces a spatiotemporal modeling framework that leverages connected vehicle data to predict shelter demand using data collected during Hurricane Sally (September 2020) across Santa Rosa, Escambia, and Okaloosa counties in Florida, USA. Using Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) with spatial and temporal smoothing, integrated with GIS tools, the framework captures non-linear evacuation patterns and predicts shelter demand. The GAM outperformed the baseline Generalized Linear Model (GLM), achieving a Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 6.7791 and a correlation coefficient (CORR) of 0.8593 for shelters on training data, compared to the GLM’s RMSE of 12.9735 and CORR of 0.1760. For lodging facilities, the GAM achieved an RMSE of 4.0368 and CORR of 0.5485, improving upon the GLM’s RMSE of 4.6103 and CORR of 0.2897. While test data showed moderate declines in performance, the GAM consistently offered more accurate and interpretable results across both facility types. This integration of connected vehicle data with spatiotemporal modeling enables real-time insights into evacuation dynamics. Visualization outputs, like spatial heat maps, provide actionable data for emergency planners to allocate resources efficiently, enhancing disaster resilience and public safety during complex emergencies.