Assessing the Vulnerability of Winter Maintenance Material Storage Facilities

Abstract

AbstractThis research examines the vulnerability of the winter maintenance salt supply to depletion and the associated risk costs in Ohio using Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT)-specific data pertaining to the amount of salt storage, number of trucks, and lane kilometers maintained by each county. These data were combined with the number of snowfall events in each county to determine the failure probability. The results indicated that the probability of exceeding the salt capacity ranged from less than 0.01 to 61%, with an average of 23.1%. Sensitivity and importance analyses were conducted to determine the change in probability of exceedance due to a one-unit change in each parameter and to examine the influence of each random variable in the reliability analysis on the variance of the limit state, respectively. The parameter with the highest importance was the salt applied during light snowfall, while the brine applied has a low importance. Annual risk costs were estimated using the purchase and ...