OpenSafe Mobility

Open source Situational Awareness Framework for Mobility

Context

This repository contains the code for OpenSafe Mobility. OpenSafe Mobility is the first among a group of tools collectively called OpenSafe. OpenSafe project aims to conceptualize, develop, validate, and maintain reliable and affordable situational awareness and emergency response decision-making tools.

Description

OpenSafe Mobility aims to provide real-time information on flooded roads. It achieves this by performing real-time flood simulations using a state-of-the-art flood model, rainfall data, and network and spatial analyses.

Transferability

The framework is transferable to other regions.

Steps to follow:

1. Develop and validate a flood model. While OpenSafe Mobility uses HEC-RAS, any other software that can be managed by Python (or via an API) can be used.
2. Secure access to real-time rainfall data. Some options are radar (NEXRAD, OPERA), gage-adjusted rainfall radar, and gage data.
3. Acquire access to a web domain (e.g., using Google Domains), web hosting (e.g., using Amazon AWS), and a mapping framework (E.g., using Mapbox).
4. Collect additional data for roads (e.g., OpenStreetMap), location on critical facilities (e.g., HIFLD dataset), socio-demographic data (e.g., census data).
5. Clone the repository and create a Python environment using the environment.yml file.
6. Modify the code to suit the study area. OpenSafe Mobility model parameters are stored in Hydra Config files (configs).

Cost of Operation

1. Web domain - ~12/year (Google Domains). Cheaper options are also available.
2. Web hosting - Amazon AWS. $0.0004/1000 requests.
3. Map framework -
   1. Mapbox: Free (50k monthly loads); $250 (100k monthly loads); $1610 (500k monthly loads).
   2. Leaflet: Free and Open Source.
4. Radar data: Free (NEXARD) or gage-adjusted radar data (depends on the provider).
5. Flood model development: Regional flood models might be open source and free (e.g., M3 System from Harris County Flood Control District). Cost for custom flood models depends on several factors.

How to Obtain OpenSafe Mobility Code

Install dependencies

# clone project
git clone https://github.com/Pranavesh-Panakkal/OpenSafe-Mobility
cd OpenSafe-Mobility

# [OPTIONAL] create conda environment
conda env create --file environment.yml
conda activate opensafe_mobility

REST API Access

To facilitate interoperability with existing tools, OpenSafe provides access to real-time results from the framework.

Real-time information on flooded roads:

https://bxx9umzruh.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/default/opensafe_rest_api?key=flooded_roads.geojson

For flood impact on access to select critical facilities:

https://bxx9umzruh.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/default/opensafe_rest_api?key=mobility.geojson

License

TBD

Contact

Please contact Pranavesh Panakkal [pranavesh at rice.edu] or Dr. Jamie Ellen Padgett for more information.