Measurement of functional resilience of transport network: The case of the Beijing subway network

Abstract

Resilience is an important concept for measuring a system's ability to cope with various disruptions. This study proposes an application-oriented framework for measuring the dynamic functional resilience (FR) of a transport network responding to supply and demand disruptions without external interventions. On the conceptual side, three complementary capacity-related dimensions, namely, robustness, adaptability, and recoverability, are incorporated in the single FR framework from the perspective of physical laws. On the applied side, we suggest a measurement model given certain network indices and apply it to the Beijing subway network (BSN). The results indicate the measurement model can capture the dynamics of network performances, identify the time-varying bottlenecks, and predict the influence of the dynamic capacity expansions on network resilience. The findings are useful for policy-making regarding the dynamic design, operation, and reconstruction of the transport infrastructure.