Using a modeling system like this, emergency response personnel could determine the impact zones, the optimal routes for response teams, where casualties might occur, and how the agent is dispersed. The efforts of clean-up crews and medical teams could be enhanced as well with knowledge of the final location and levels of exposure. Further research efforts are underway at Los Alamos to better estimate the impact of multiple buildings on plume transport and dispersion. Research on transportation simulation continues at LANL, including efforts to abstract the fundamental vehicle flow dynamics so that problems can be run on PC platforms. Major roadways impacted by the the contaminant cloud.
Diamonds represent intersection nodes and cover the entire active simulation region.
Node locations of the roadway network in the Dallas-Ft. The spatial extent of the plume location 10 minutes after release is depicted. The red box demarcates the region of active traffic simulation. Vehicle exposure as function of final destination. Intersection of red lines denote contaminant plume source location.