Abstract
Intercity networks constitute a highly important civil infrastructure in developed countries, as they contribute to the prosperity and development of the connected communities. This was evident after recent strong earthquakes that caused extensive structural damage to key transportation components, such as bridges, overpasses, tunnels and geotechnical works, that in turn led to a significant additional loss associated with the prolonged traffic disruption. In cases of seismic events in developed societies with complex and coupled intercity transportation systems, the interdependency between citizens’ life and road functionality has further amplified the seismically-induced loss. Quantifying therefore, the resilience of road networks, defined as their ability to withstand, adapt to, and rapidly recover after a disruptive event, is a challenging issue of paramount importance towards holistic disaster risk mitigation and management. This study takes into account the above aspects of network resilience to earthquake loading and establishes a comprehensive, multi-criterion framework for mitigating the overall loss expected to be experienced by the community due to future earthquake events. The latter is decoupled into the direct structural damage-related loss and the indirect loss associated with the travel delays of the network users, as well as the wider socio-economic consequences in the affected area. In order to reflect the multi-dimensional nature of loss, a set of novel, time-variant indicators is herein introduced, while cumulative indicators are proposed for assessing the total loss incurred throughout the entire recovery period. This probabilistic risk management framework is implemented into a software to facilitate informed decisions of the stakeholders, both before and after a major earthquake event, thus prioritizing the pre-disruption strengthening schemes and accelerating the inspection and recovery measures, respectively.
Highlights
Intercity transportation networks constitute a vital component of prosperity in modern, dense populated societies by facilitating the mobility of people, goods and services
A holistic framework is presented for the multi-criterion assessment and management of the seismic risk and resilience of roadway networks
Different sources of uncertainty that contribute to the overall network seismic risk, namely, hazard and vulnerability, coupled with consequences analysis are accounted for and integral aspects of resilience such as network functionality and post-earthquake time-dimension are integrated into the overall process
Summary
Intercity transportation networks constitute a vital component of prosperity in modern, dense populated societies by facilitating the mobility of people, goods and services. As the spatially variable damage is restored gradually but not simultaneously for the entire network, its spatial distribution varies in time and subsequently, the post-earthquake traffic and the associated indirect loss are recovery-dependent This time dimension of resilience in conjunction with the traffic assignment that is necessary for simulating traffic conditions, further imply that the Origin–Destination (OD) matrix that controls the traffic generation is dynamic, in other words, the drivers’ behavior is event-dependent (i.e., they tend to alter their destination after a disaster and divert towards home, shelter or emergency facilities). There is a need for a framework that treats uncertainties related to hazard, damage and consequences in a balanced way, while at the same time explicitly accounts for time-dimension of recovery, network functionality and multidimensionality of seismic losses, three key aspects for quantifying resilience Along these lines, this paper seeks to develop a robust, multi-dimensional, applicable, framework for the quantification of road network risk and resilience in earthquake regions. With the aid of an open GIS-based software developed and an interconnected dynamic traffic assignment engine (Zhou et al 2014), the framework permits roadway stakeholders to form alternative risk management strategies to minimize loss and optimize functionality after an earthquake disaster
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