Critical Transportation Infrastructure Research Articles

Passenger recovery after an airport closure at tourist destinations: A case study of Palma de Mallorca airport

In the context of increased concern about the resilience of critical transport infrastructure to external events and the impact of such events on local tourism industries, this paper analyzes the ability of tourism-oriented airports to relocate departing passengers in the event of an unexpected airport closure. A case study of Palma de Mallorca airport is presented. Using an MIDT dataset on passenger itineraries in August 2014, several closure scenarios are simulated, and disrupted passengers are relocated to minimum-delay itineraries. Aggregate delays and relocation rates are used to assess the impact of each scenario, with a particular focus on UK and Germany markets. The results provide useful benchmarks for the development of policies aimed at minimizing the impact on stranded tourists, such as allowing for passenger connections, establishing a protocol for interline cooperation, and improving intermodal transfers. These measures will help mitigate the negative impacts on airline loyalty and destination image.

The good, the bad and the implications of profiling mobile broadband coverage

Pervasive coverage and continuous connectivity of Mobile Broadband (MBB) networks are common goals for regulators and operators. Given the increasing heterogeneity of technologies in the last mile of MBB networks, further support for seamless connectivity across multiple network types relies on understanding the prevalent network coverage profiles that capture different available technologies in an area. Correlating these coverage profiles with network performance metrics is of great importance in order to forestall disturbances for applications running on top of MBB networks. In this paper, we aim to profile MBB coverage and its performance implications from the end-user’s perspective along critical transport infrastructures (i.e., railways in Norway). For this, we deploy custom measurement nodes on-board five Norwegian inter-city trains and we collect a unique geo-tagged dataset along the train routes. We then build a coverage mosaic, where we divide the routes into segments and analyze the coverage of individual operators in each segment. We propose and evaluate the use of hierarchical clustering to describe prevalent coverage profiles of MBB networks along the train routes and classify each segment accordingly. We further analyze the areas we classify with each profile and assess the packet-loss and HTTP download performance of the networks in those areas.

Protection of Critical Waterborne Transport Infrastructures: An Economic Review

It is essential that transport infrastructures are protected against events which cause their failure. At an optimal level of protection, the sum of protection costs and expected residual damages following from disruptions will be minimized. In most cases however, this optimal level is not achieved because infrastructure protection is susceptible to various market and government failures. This brings us to the question who (a private or public actor) should do how much (the level of protection and intervention). This question is addressed in the present paper.The starting point of the paper is the Directive of the European Council on the identification and designation of European Critical Infrastructures. We review the protection of critical waterborne transport infrastructures from an economic perspective. The review is based on a literature study and several interviews with Critical Infrastructure experts. For the studied infrastructures, we have identified causes and effects of their failure and examined the private–public roles in protecting them. Considering the market and government failures which occur in such configuration of roles, we propose several changes. We conclude that from a national policy perspective there are two important routes: (1) reinforcement of private sector roles among others by defining liabilities and providing information on risks and (2) strengthening of supra-national collaboration via improving and standardizing regulations, cost-sharing initiatives and penalty systems.

A Decision Support System for the Resilience of Critical Transport Infrastructure to Extreme Weather Events

Resilience of critical transport infrastructure to extreme weather events, such as heavy rainfall, drought or icing, is one of the most demanding challenges for both government and society. Extreme weather is a phenomenon that causes threats to the well-functioning of the infrastructure. The impacts of various levels of extreme weather on the infrastructure varies throughout Europe. These impacts are witnessed through changes in seasons and extreme temperatures, humidity, extreme or prolonged precipitation or drought, extreme wind, and thunderstorms. The extreme weather events may result in disasters such as flooding, drought, ice formation or wild fires. These present a range of challenges to the operational resilience of critical transport infrastructure.The economic and societal relevance of the dependency and resilience of critical transport infrastructure is obvious: infrastructure malfunctions and outages can have far reaching consequences and impacts on economy and society. The cost of developing and maintaining critical transport infrastructure is high if they are expected to have a realistic functional and economic life (i.e. 50+ years). Hence, future extreme weather events have to be taken into account when considering protection measures, mitigation measures and adaption measures to reflect actual and predicted instances of critical transport infrastructure failures.The INTACT project, which is co-financed by the European Commission, addresses these challenges and brings together innovative and cutting edge knowledge and experience in Europe. It develops and demonstrates best practices in engineering, materials, construction, planning and designing protective measures as well as crisis response and recovery capabilities. All this will culminate in a decision support system that facilitates cross-disciplinary and cross-border data sharing and provides for a forum for evidence-based policy formulation.This paper provides some first results of the project and an outlook to the final result, the ‘INTACT Wiki’, a decision support system for the resilience of critical infrastructure to extreme weather events.

A Multi-hazard Risk Assessment Methodology, Stress Test Framework and Decision Support Tool for Transport Infrastructure Networks

Natural hazards can cause serious disruption to societies and their transport infrastructure networks. The impact of extreme hazard events is largely dependent on the resilience of societies and their networks. The INFRARISK project is developing a reliable stress test framework for critical European transport infrastructure to analyse the response of networks to extreme hazard events. The project considers the spatio-temporal processes associated with multi-hazard and cascading extreme events (e.g. earthquakes, floods, landslides) and their impacts on road and rail transport infrastructure networks. As part of the project, an operational framework is being developed using an online INFRARISK Decision Support Tool (IDST) to advance decision making approaches, leading to better protection of existing transport infrastructure. The framework will enable the next generation of European infrastructure managers to analyse the risk to critical road and rail infrastructure networks due to extreme natural hazard events. To demonstrate the overarching risk assessment methodology developed in the project, the methodology is demonstrated for two case studies, which comprise portions of the European TEN-T network; a road network in the region of Bologna, Italy and a rail network extending from Rijeka to Zagreb in Croatia. This paper provides an overview of the INFRARISK multi-hazard risk assessment methodology and a brief introduction to the case studies, as the project is currently ongoing. INFRARISK is funded by the European Commission's FP7 programme, Grant Agreement No. 603960. Further information can be found at www.infrarisk-fp7.eu.

Improving Safety of Transportation by Using Intelligent Transport Systems

As the intelligent railway is the trend of current development, the paper aims to show an overview of some examples of intelligent systems and their functions that could help to protect transportation infrastructure. The paper deals with importance of critical transportation infrastructure and ways to protect it. Intelligent transportation systems are advanced tools to improve and support protection of critical infrastructure elements. The main purpose is to define intelligent transportation systems which could be used to protect elements of critical road and rail transportation infrastructure. Protection of critical transportation infrastructure is very complex issue. It is not difficult to identify a large number of critical infrastructure elements. The question is: “How to protect/ensure them?” A compromise between funding of protection and finding really critical elements is to be found. There are many systems that could be used to make infrastructure and whole transportation safer. A lot of projects are dealing with building new systems, architecture of management system that could help users to manage traffic.

Critical Infrastructure: Making It Private or Public An Institutional Economic Discussion on the Example of Transport Infrastructure

Governments have always been playing a central role for the provision and protection of critical infrastructures (infrastructures that are essential to national stability and security, such as energy, water or transport). Over the last decade, criticism on the increasing instability and vulnerability of these infrastructures emerged as they require special attention when it comes to modernization and protection, e.g. terrorism. Public-private partnerships open up public monopolies for competition and potential efficiency gains. In this paper, we show the risks and opportunities of including the private sector and consequently business interests on the example of transport infrastructure. We apply a novel institutional economic role model with which we can identify necessary roles (i.e. actions) for the provision and protection of critical transport infrastructure. We, then, provide a theory-driven discussion on the role of public and private actors. The results of our paper give an indication of the role of public policy for transport infrastructure. Taking a broader perspective, this paper will help to understand the effective ratio of public and private actions for the provision and protection of critical infrastructure.

The impacts of the 28 June 2012 storms on UK road and rail transport

Extreme weather events can cause severe disruption to transport systems, greatly reducing the ability to maintain important social and economic functions such as the delivery of goods and materials within the supply chain. There is a need for greater qualitative and quantitative understanding of how transport systems respond under adverse conditions, to inform event management and to aid adaptation actions. The present study uses the intense storms of 28 June 2012 as a case study to present a novel exploration of the impacts of an extreme event using high spatial and temporal resolution transport data for the UK road and rail networks, as well as weather data from the UK Meteorological Office's MIDAS surface station network and NIMROD weather radar. This event caused widespread disruption, severing the main rail links between England and Scotland and causing 10 000 delay minutes to train services throughout the country, as well as causing reduced speeds on local roads and motorways. The present study describes the meteorological situation in the build-up to and during the event, and uses Network Rail train delay data to visualize the way in which the failure of several sections of critical transport infrastructure caused disruption that propagated quickly through the rail network of Great Britain. Highway Agency motorway speed data are used to quantify the impact of this event on the M6 motorway in the West Midlands. Ways in which the insights gained from these data can be used to aid the transport sector in the prioritization of adaptation actions are discussed.

Identification and Prioritization of Critical Transportation Infrastructure: Case Study of Coastal Flooding

AbstractIn order to better inform transportation decision makers of the criticality of transportation infrastructure, this paper explores an accessibility-based criticality prioritization methodology to identify and prioritize critical transportation infrastructure. In particular, the methodology evaluates the network-wide impacts of infrastructure degradation based on the increase in travel cost taking origin importance, destination attractiveness, and traffic congestion into account. The methodology is applied to the road network of Hillsborough County, Florida, threatened by flood risk from storm surge, sea-level rise, and intense precipitation. Light detection and ranging digital elevation data, transportation infrastructure and network data, and zone-based population data of the county are processed for analysis. The approach yields results of not only the criticality of transportation infrastructure under flooding impact but also the most vulnerable zones as a result of infrastructure inundation. Th...

The Assessment of Population Safety in the Vicinity of Unclassified Risk Sources

Act on the Prevention of Major Industrial Accidents defines the threshold quantities of hazardous substances in companies. Businesses that have exceeded their limits assess risks under this act. For smaller establishments where dangerous substances are present in quantities subliminal, risk assessment in terms of the occurrence and effects of the accident is not required. Nevertheless, these objects can represent a source of danger of a major accident, especially given its location, nature of the threat and synergy due to several adverse circumstances. Aim of this paper is to design a model for assessing the degree of threat or safety margin so unclassified sources of risks, for example refrigeration equipment, winter stadium, gas reservoirs and to apply the algorithm for the risk assessment of such objects. Unclassified sources of risk may also be a threat to critical transport infrastructure or its elements. The result is a consistent multi-step methodological approach to the assessment of risk sources and validation of selected operations involving dangerous substances, not reaching the threshold of this Act.

STATISTICAL RESEARCH WITHIN THE PERFORMANCE TESTING IN THE CRITICAL TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

In the last years crisis management is dealing with many important problems. The current threats of countries, inhabitants, property and natural environment belongs to the most important issues. The extreme weather negative impacts and adverse consequences caused by accidents in technological processes and transport have become more and more frequent and intense events. In addition danger of extremism and terrorism, aimed at important object, is also expanding. In developed countries these objects are parts of critical infrastructure. Critical infrastructure sectors in different countries are not unified. In most of the countries the critical infrastructure includes information technologies, energy and transportation. In Slovakia the transportation sector consists of subsectors – road, water, aviation and railway transport. The railway transport is an important subsector of the critical infrastructure. Its importance is unquestionable especially in the field of mass transportation and transportation of bulk substrata. Traditional methods, which were used in the past, were based on experience. The actual possibilities of computer technique enable to explore the railway transport performance through expert information systems. They are based on detailed statistical research. The paper will present the results of the researchers of the Faculty of Special Engineering, University of Žilina focused on the selection and testing the suitable distribution for stochastic events in railway transport. Based on the extensive statistical research the authors demonstrate that the driving time of trains in line sections is more suitable to be considered as random variable with Erlang distribution. The mentioned theoretical findings were used in development of software tool ASTRA that simulates railway transport in emergency situations. Keywwords: Critical transport infrastructure, statistical research, risk management.

Real-time tools for situational awareness and emergency management in transport infrastructures

Critical transport infrastructures such as interchanges, long tunnels and bridges represent the most vulnerable environments within a transportation network; they are characterised by limited access/egress points and high volumes of users in close confines. A number of factors must be addressed to ensure maximum safety of both travellers and emergency service personnel; these include emergency preparedness, timely support for the decision-making process, and planning of optimal interventions in emergency management situations. This paper discusses the integration of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and virtual reality (VR) to support the self-evacuation of travellers and operational procedures of rescue personnel within these environments, focusing on two key aspects of emergency operations: 1) collecting real-time data; 2) improving the timeliness of first responders through efficient provision of the collected data. Testimonials, technical results and recommendations collated from two pilot installations realised within the EU-funded SAVE ME project demonstrate the qualitative and quantitative impact of such an approach on emergency situation management.

Identifying Sea Level Rise Vulnerability using GIS: Development of a Transit Inundation Modeling Method

Sea level rise inundation poses risk to critical transportation infrastructure as the threat of climate change continues. Although mitigation efforts are being implemented, these practices are not timely enough to avoid all potential impact. Therefore, adaptation practices are essential to building resilience and protecting transportation facilities, specifically public transit (rail and bus) networks. This research establishes a method, Transit Inundation Modeling Method (TIMM), used to identify transit infrastructure systems that are vulnerable to sea level rise using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). TIMM allows transit agencies to begin adapting by identifying at-risk links and nodes based on various sea level rise inundation levels. This method is applied to a case study application on the Philadelphia County transit system (railway and bus routes). This case study is used to determine the method’s applicability and relevance to a real world transit network. By using this method to identify vulnerabilities, transit agencies throughout the nation can begin to implement adaptation practices (elevate, relocate or reinforce) in order to protect existing facilities as well as plan for future transit projects.

Theoretical frame for testing critical transport infrastructure elements

The authors in the paper deal with the role of road transport in terms of critical infrastructure and they also deal with criteria established to ens ure the required level of connection of critical infrastructure elements by road transport. The atte ntion is paid to the influence of constraints on the quality of traffic flow as permissible traff ic intensity, the influence of the proportion of heavy vehicles, reserve capacity, waiting time. The contribution deals with transport and technical management of highway segments.

Uncertainty Propagation in Quantitative Risk Assessment Modeling for Fire in Road Tunnels

Road tunnels are critical transportation infrastructures that provide underground passageways for motorists and commuters. Fire in road tunnels in combination with tunnel safety provisions failure may lead to catastrophic consequences, and thus, necessitates a robust and reliable approach to assess tunnel risks. This article proposes a quantitative risk assessment model for fire in road tunnel by taking into consideration two types of uncertainties. A Monte Carlo-based estimation method is developed to propagate parameter uncertainty in quantitative risk assessment model consisting of event tree analysis as well as consequence estimation models. The percentile-based individual risks and α-cut-based societal risks are put up and the risk indices are proven to be very useful for tunnel operators with distinct risk attitudes to assess the safety level of a road tunnel. Finally, the proposed research methodology is applied to Singapore KPE road tunnels.

Safeguarding critical transportation infrastructure: The US case

This paper analyzes the state of critical transportation infrastructure in the US, its relationship to security, and how the lack of an updated national policy to resolve the serious weaknesses of the transportation infrastructure negatively impact security. The difficulties in safeguarding transportation networks are identified along with the degree to which changes enacted since 9/11 regarding intelligence and administration, notably the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, have led to increased security. However, these efforts, however successful, must be supplemented by a decision-making approach that goes beyond prevention and recognizes the importance of resiliency and such subsidiary concepts as robustness and redundancy.

Toward Long-Term Recovery in Mississippi: Understanding the Impact of the Transportation System on Economic Resilience

AbstractOver the last decade, the state of Mississippi has shown its high susceptibility to natural and human-made disasters. The damages caused by Hurricane Katrina affected the economy not only of the coastal region, but also of the entire state. In particular, the loss of critical transportation infrastructure affected industries and the labor force. This paper analyzes the strong geographic correlation between the transportation network and economic development. The authors investigated the interdependency of logistics and regional economic distress using a model for simulating disruptions to the transportation network. To calibrate the model, the writers used the disruptions of CSX coastal rails in Mississippi and the shipbuilding industry’s economic indicators in the region pre- and post-Katrina. A hypothetical application of the model was created based on a high-magnitude earthquake along the New Madrid fault, which would impact northwest Mississippi. Disruptions were simulated in the railroad netw...

Tomographic imaging of holographic GPR data for non-invasive structural assessment: the Musmeci bridge investigation

The monitoring of the structural integrity of critical transport infrastructures is extremely important in order to prevent accidents, disasters and ensure urban safety. For this reason, several remote and in situ nondestructive electromagnetic technologies have been exploited as diagnostic tools, from which it is possible to obtain information and images of the infrastructure inner status at different spatial and temporal scales. In this framework, this paper deals with holographic ground-penetrating radar tomographic imaging, used as an in situ diagnostic tool to provide high-resolution images of shallowly buried metallic and dielectric objects. As a matter of fact, the need of integrating information gathered at different scales for a global assessment of the structure health makes the (local and high resolution) image obtained by means of this technique particularly valuable. In particular, we consider the Rascan-4/4000 radar system coupled with a tomographic imaging approach specifically tailored to process holographic data, which is adopted to improve the achievable spatial resolution. A proof of concept of the reconstruction capabilities is given against laboratory data. Moreover, on-field examples in the framework of concrete structures monitoring are shown by processing data collected at the Musmeci bridge in Potenza, Italy.

Spatiotemporal analysis of critical transportation links based on time geographic concepts: a case study of critical bridges in Wuhan, China

Critical transportation infrastructure has been studied extensively in recent years. This paper presents a spatiotemporal analysis of critical transportation links based on time geographic concepts. With widespread adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) and location-aware mobile devices, large tracking datasets have become readily available. This study uses a tracking dataset of approximately 12,000 taxis in Wuhan, China over 1week to analyze spatiotemporal origin–destination (O–D) patterns of trips that use three critical bridges connecting the three districts of Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang separated by the Yangtze River and the Han River. We use the space–time prism concept to identify alternative space–time paths passing through different bridges that observe the spatial and temporal constraints between each O–D pair derived from the taxi trajectory data. This case study illustrates the feasibility and benefits of using the proposed time geographic approach to analyze spatiotemporal patterns of travel demands on the critical links and their alternative paths in a transportation system.

Use of Small-Scale Test Data to Enhance Fire-Related Threat, Vulnerability, Consequence and Risk Assessment for Passenger Rail Vehicles

Fires in passenger rail vehicles pose threats to people and to critical transportation infrastructure. Although relevant guidelines and regulations exist, current approaches lack details needed for comprehensive fire-related threat, vulnerability, consequence and risk assessment (TVCRA), particularly with respect to identifying the size of initiation fire necessary to ignite the interior lining materials, assessing the potential for a fire to encompass the entire vehicle, and evaluating options for reducing the overall energy of a fully involved vehicle fire. However, these shortcomings can be addressed cost effectively by obtaining fire properties of materials used in passenger rail vehicles through small-scale tests, applying a simplified flame spread screening approach using the test data, and incorporating the output into an existing fire TVCRA framework. With these enhancements, operators will be better able to link vulnerabilities and consequences to a range of fire threats, and have more robust data for informing fire mitigation and operational response decisions.