The RESOLUTE project’s European Resilience Management Guidelines for Critical Infrastructure: development, operationalisation and testing for the urban transport system

Abstract

Critical Infrastructure protection is an issue of priority in Europe, enabling numerous activities for rendering the European Critical infrastructure resilient. A framework for enhancing critical transportation infrastructure resilience could potentially serve as a roadmap for addressing some of the vulnerabilities and criticalities the Urban Transport System (UTS) is facing (e.g. ageing infrastructure, extreme weather conditions, terrorist attacks). Within RESOLUTE project, this need has been addressed, by defining European Resilience Management Guidelines tailored to UTS functions, by developing tools for their operationalisation, as well as by defining performance indicators for assessing their performance. The RESOLUTE pilot that took place in Florence has implemented this approach and the findings show that effective management and continuous monitoring of UTS, with the use of appropriate tools, facilitates the early identification of vulnerabilities and allows for the a priori enhancement of the system’s resilience.