Mitigating the Impact of Transportation Network

Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Dr. Lance Fiondella received a one-year $25K research grant from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This joint project between UMass Dartmouth (PI: Lance Fiondella) and the University of Connecticut (Co-PI: Nicholas Lownes) will support Dr. Fiondella’s transportation network vulnerability research. The project, “Mitigating the Impact of Transportation Network Disruptions on Evacuation”, was awarded by the DHS Office of University Programs through the National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at the University of Southern California.

The purpose of this research is to develop algorithms for transportation network vulnerability assessment and routing to enhance the realism of decision support systems (DSS) for the National Planning Scenarios, a set of 15 high consequence scenarios encompassing CBRNe (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear explosives) events, disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes, and cyber-attacks. Existing DSS implement best-in-class simulation techniques for scientific phenomenon such as the propagation of a plume released from an explosive device and building damage that may result from an earthquake. However, most of these scenarios lack a transportation component that could be used for real-time evacuation planning.

Dr. Fiondella received his Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut in 2012. He joined the ECE department in fall 2013.