Contextualized transport reallocation for crisis response in smart cities

Source abstract

Extreme events, such as floods, have become increasingly frequent and severe, with disproportionate impacts on vulnerable populations. Addressing these challenges requires integrated solutions that combine event detection, vulnerability assessment, resource reallocation, and communication with affected communities. This paper explores different components of such a response. The contribution focuses on bus rerouting during floods, applying graph-based algorithms on top of a vulnerability assessment procedure to reorganize urban transport and prioritize the mobility of those most in need. Results indicate that the approach can identify efficient detours with low computational cost, making it feasible for real-time applications. The solution is part of the Integrated Crisis Awareness and Resource Utilization for Smart Cities (ICARUS) system, a smart city hypervisor aimed at supporting rapid and multifaceted response to extreme events. This paper describes the overall system, with a focus on the use case of bus rerouting during floods.