Economic Resiliency Assessment Framework for Investments in Maritime Security

Abstract

Maritime ports are critical nodes in global supply network. Marine terminals provide the interface and connection between waterside and landside transport modes for the movement of cargo and passengers. These terminals are exposed to variety of organizational and environmental risks that may disrupt its services and potentially result in large amounts of direct and indirect financial losses. Maritime security investments must consider many perspectives, but the base purpose is to maintain a normal flow of maritime freight and passengers for business continuity. Security investments are made to reduce the risk of service disruptions and to restore operations to prior levels of service following a disruption. It is impractical to provide 100% security against all kinds of disruptions. Hence, resiliency options are needed which will, in case of any disruptive event, aide the facility to bounce back to normal operational capacity with a faster recovery time. An economic resiliency assessment (ERA) framework helps evaluate alternative course of actions and its resiliency benefits for marine terminals. This paper uses a systems thinking approach to create an ERA framework for evaluating cost and benefits for the maritime security investments options. ERA framework template can be applied to many other marine terminals or supply networks to help decision-makers create investment strategies for allocation of available finance in maritime security and business continuity plan.