A Flood Evacuation Pre-Planning for Optimal Route Navigation in Malaysia using Ant Colony Optimization

The aim of the study was to solve the problem of people being trapped in their homes during floods, which can be extremely dangerous for their safety. The height of evacuation routes has not been considered in traditional flood evacuation planning procedures, leaving them vulnerable to flooding. The ideal evacuation route was determined using the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) approach. The ACO algorithm is a kind of swarm intelligence system that, like ants, searches for the shortest path between two locations. In this study, the elevation of the road was included as a parameter known as beta in the optimization procedure, which is a unique approach. This was done to consider the possibility of flooding at different altitudes and to ensure that the evacuation route is not only the fastest but also the safest. The study was conducted in Taman Sri Muda, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia and the results showed that the ACO algorithm was able to determine the best evacuation route for the local population. The results showed that the best approach was a mixture of Taman Sri Muda-specific parameter values that considered the specifics of the area such as road elevations and likely floodplains. The results of this study have significant implications for disaster management agencies. Combining the parameter values results in 35% of the same shortest evacuation route being the shortest route and 45% of the same safest evacuation route being the safest route available. This study provides a more comprehensive approach to flood evacuation planning by including route elevation as a component in the optimization process. This information can be used to reduce the number of people trapped in their homes during floods and increase public safety. The results can be used by disaster management organizations to improve evacuation strategies and ensure that residents can be moved quickly and effectively to a safe location during floods