A REVIEW OF EMERGENCY ROADS IN ISTANBUL: PAST, CURRENT AND FUTURE

Abstract

 In case of earthquakes, floods, fires, and landslides, access to the disaster area is vital via transportation modes, either road or rail, marine, and airways to save people and reduce the causalities. In this respect, the transportation planning process is crucial in evaluating the systems’ road capacity and demand conditions to plan an efficient and effective emergency master plan. During the disaster management process, the worst scenario considers mobility that will occur before, during, and after the disasters. The location choices of disaster management centers and logistic activity areas, as well as meeting points that will be used in an emergency, are determined, and positioned according to the status of emergency transportation routes. This study reviews the Istanbul emergency road conditions in terms of their capacity, damaged position, and requirements for an earthquake. It illustrates past, current, and future circumstances of emergency roads in Istanbul by using building data to estimate the possibility of the closure of emergency roads. ArcMAP program is used for analyzing the emergency road capacity and damaged position. Building conditions are determined by using the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality data. Besides, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Megacity Indicator System for Disaster Risk Management (MegaIST) reports also give tremendous information during the preparation of emergency road analysis. Based on the investigation, the conditions of the emergency roads in Istanbul are evaluated, and suggestions for future development are made to highlight the conditions. According to the results, it determines that many roads will be closed in a possible earthquake because of the buildings located near emergency roads.