Proactive Priority Based Response to Road Flooding using AHP: A Case Study in Dammam

Abstract

This paper proposes an AHP based real-time solution to facilitate response to road flooding which is a recurrent issue in almost all cities in Saudi Arabia. In the event of heavy rains, municipalities face a surge in the demand to attend to road flooding incidents and it can be difficult to decide which road sections to prioritize. The study first introduces the proposed web-based road flooding management system which utilizes a variety of different information including real-time and historical weather data, digital terrain data and descriptive road parameters to provide flood response teams with clear information on the real-time status of roads. It then proposes the AHP based multi-parameter decision analysis solution which analyses the significance of the road parameters with respect to each other and assigns a specific response priority to each road section. This final priority will allow flood response teams to expedite the response to road sections with a higher priority, thus improving the efficiency of flood responses.