ORIGINAL PAPER Effects of Hurricanes Irene and Sandy in New Jersey: traffic patterns and highway disruptions during evacuations Jian Li 1 • Kaan Ozbay 2 • Bekir Bartin 3 Received: 23 November 2013 / Accepted: 21 May 2015 / Published online: 9 June 2015 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Abstract This paper describes a quantitative analysis of traffic patterns and highway disruptions during Hurricane Irene and Sandy evacuations in New Jersey (NJ). This empirical study is based on multiple traffic and event data collected by various trans- portation agencies in NJ. In the first part of the paper, the temporal and spatial traffic patterns in NJ during Irene and Sandy evacuations were explored, and a comparative assessment of evacuation departure models was conducted based on the empirical traffic data. In the second part, we explored the frequency and geographic distribution of highway disruptions (vehicle accidents/incidents, incidents such as downed trees or road flooding caused by extreme winds and heavy rains, and highway bottlenecks) during Irene and Sandy evacuations and pre-landfall periods. The empirical patterns observed in this study can be used to improve real-world emergency response operations and evacuation models. The empirical findings may also benefit hurricane evacuation planning in areas with similar circumstances as NJ. An earlier and less comprehensive version of this paper was presented, under the title ‘‘Effects of Hurricane Irene and Sandy in New Jersey: Evacuation Traffic Patterns,’’ in Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting, Jan 2014. This work was done, while the authors were in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, 08854. & Jian Li jianli@tongji.edu.cn Kaan Ozbay kaan.ozbay@nyu.edu Bekir Bartin bekir.bartin@kemerburgaz.edu.tr 1 Department of Traffic Engineering & Key Laboratory of Road and Traffic Engineering, Ministry of Education, Tongji University, 4800 Cao’an Road, Shanghai 201804, China 2 Department of Civil and Urban Engineering, Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP), New York University, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA 3 Civil Engineering Department, Istanbul Kernerburgaz University, Istanbul, Turkey 123 Nat Hazards (2015) 78:2081–2107 DOI 10.1007/s11069-015-1820-9