Abstract
Understanding the environmental impacts of road networks and the success of policy initiatives is crucial to a country’s socioeconomic development. In this study, we propose a comprehensive approach to quantitatively assessing whether a given response is effective in mitigating the impacts of environmental shocks on roads. Our approach includes factor analysis, direct and indirect loss quantification, and cost-benefit analysis. Using nationwide data on road malfunctions and weather service performance in China, we found that the macro-level indirect economic losses from road malfunctions were more than the direct losses in multiples ranging from 11 to 21, and that information provided by the weather service could reduce losses, with benefits exceeding costs by a ratio of 51. The results of our study provide a quantitative tool as well as evidence of the effectiveness of sustainability investment, which should provide guidance for future disaster mitigation, infrastructure system resilience, and sustainability-building policy-making.
Highlights
An efficient road transportation system is crucial for economic growth and social development, and road safety has attracted considerable attention given its relevance to society in terms of the human, economic, and property costs resulting from road malfunctions [1]
Natural hazards affect the functioning of roads to varying degrees, and we conducted statistical analyses of the total delay time and length of road affected by the malfunction as a result of various hazards
Since the maximum capacity of the road network changes dynamically in response to a hazard or natural disaster [14], it is necessary to increase coordinated scientific governance to mitigate the adverse impact of multiple hazards on traffic safety and economic efficiency
Summary
An efficient road transportation system is crucial for economic growth and social development, and road safety has attracted considerable attention given its relevance to society in terms of the human, economic, and property costs resulting from road malfunctions [1]. Environmental factors affecting transportation, including meteorological and geological hazards, often lead to road malfunctions such as congestion and road closures, threatening the orderly development of society and causing significant economic losses through damaged infrastructure and increased transportation costs. Understanding the comprehensive impact of road malfunctions and the performance of existing policies is crucial to the planning and management of the transportation system. It is demonstrated that the ongoing climate change will increase its impact on transportation infrastructure [2], and the long-term risk of climate change could be strongly influenced by policy choices [3]. Existing research includes the application of a self-consistent comprehensive modeling framework to assess climate impacts [4], the influence evaluation of road damage on connected reliability from the perspective of traffic function loss [5], the post-disaster road network analysis and emergency planning [6], etc. Our study focuses on the overall impact of multiple hazards on a national scale, as well as how road disaster mitigation and sustainability-building can be quantified and addressed at the policy level
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