Dec 15, 2025 10:22 PM
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1109917
EXCERPTS: When Buffalo, New York’s devastating December 2022 blizzard claimed more than 30 lives, it exposed a hard reality: even life-saving travel bans can lose their force over time, especially when residents face situations where compliance becomes difficult. The disruption stretched on for days, straining households' ability to stay supplied without venturing out.
Researchers at NYU Tandon School of Engineering and Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) have now developed a way to help authorities anticipate when these breakdowns may begin.
Published in Transport Policy, the study introduces a predictive framework using weather indicators — snowfall, temperature, and snow depth — to estimate how quickly a travel ban may start to lose effectiveness.
"Agencies have the option to implement travel bans during life-threatening storms," said Professor Kaan Ozbay, the paper's senior author and founding Director of NYU Tandon's C2SMART transportation research center. "But a ban that works for a 24-hour storm may not hold for a week-long event. This framework helps officials understand those differences and plan accordingly."
[...] "The aim isn't to blame residents or agencies," Ozbay said. "It's to help officials design realistic policies from the beginning. If forecasts show a storm will push beyond what most can prepare for, you can build that into your emergency plan by arranging food deliveries, opening warming centers strategically, or implementing rolling restrictions rather than week-long bans."
The alternative — maintaining restrictions residents cannot realistically follow — can erode trust and weaken future emergency orders. Understanding these dynamics could help preserve emergency measures' legitimacy while keeping people safer.
The approach could apply to other prolonged emergencies like hurricanes or floods, where officials must balance safety with what people can sustain... (MORE - missing details, no ads)
EXCERPTS: When Buffalo, New York’s devastating December 2022 blizzard claimed more than 30 lives, it exposed a hard reality: even life-saving travel bans can lose their force over time, especially when residents face situations where compliance becomes difficult. The disruption stretched on for days, straining households' ability to stay supplied without venturing out.
Researchers at NYU Tandon School of Engineering and Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) have now developed a way to help authorities anticipate when these breakdowns may begin.
Published in Transport Policy, the study introduces a predictive framework using weather indicators — snowfall, temperature, and snow depth — to estimate how quickly a travel ban may start to lose effectiveness.
"Agencies have the option to implement travel bans during life-threatening storms," said Professor Kaan Ozbay, the paper's senior author and founding Director of NYU Tandon's C2SMART transportation research center. "But a ban that works for a 24-hour storm may not hold for a week-long event. This framework helps officials understand those differences and plan accordingly."
[...] "The aim isn't to blame residents or agencies," Ozbay said. "It's to help officials design realistic policies from the beginning. If forecasts show a storm will push beyond what most can prepare for, you can build that into your emergency plan by arranging food deliveries, opening warming centers strategically, or implementing rolling restrictions rather than week-long bans."
The alternative — maintaining restrictions residents cannot realistically follow — can erode trust and weaken future emergency orders. Understanding these dynamics could help preserve emergency measures' legitimacy while keeping people safer.
The approach could apply to other prolonged emergencies like hurricanes or floods, where officials must balance safety with what people can sustain... (MORE - missing details, no ads)
