Tag Archives: transportation network reliability

Transport Network Disruption

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Revised on: 2015-09-12

Today is my last day at work as Researcher at Møreforsking Molde. It is a sad day, because I am leaving a very exciting field, namely supply chain risk, but also a joyous day, because I am returning to a field I left 5 years ago, namely transport vulnerability. From here I head off into a new direction, as announced earlier, where I will be Senior Adviser in Societal Security and Emergency Preparedness issues to the South Region of the Norwegian Public Roads Administration. To mark the switch from supply chain risk to transport vulnerability – which has always been a minor part of this blog but will now become the major part – here is paper devoted to that very topic.

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The vulnerability of road networks in a cost-benefit perspective

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Revised on: 2011-01-05

A reliable transportation network represents a net benefit to society, and conversely, a vulnerable network represents a net cost to society. Hence, vulnerability ought to be an important parameter for decision-support in cost-benefit analyses, in order to establish a link between the terms reliability and vulnerability vis-à-vis costs and benefits. A multi-criteria analysis approach is suggested as an appropriate methodology for analyzing the monetary and non-monetary effects of vulnerability. Looking beyond the science of vulnerability assessments, this paper discusses some of the network attributes that influence the vulnerability of transportation networks, influences that can be described as structure-related, nature-related or traffic-related attributes. The influences of the individual attributes are then examined as possible candidates for measuring of the vulnerability of the transportation network.

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Book review: The Network Reliability of Transport

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Revised on: 2015-09-09

I guess you would have to have attended the conference yourself or be a researcher in this very field to actually go and buy The Network Reliability of Transport by Michael G. H. Bell (Editor), Yasunori Iida (Editor). It’s definitely worth a read, as it presents a cross-section of the current state of the art knowledge within the field. These are the people you would want to cooperate with in your own research and reading their articles is one way to get to know them. These are the same authors who wrote Transportation Network Analysis, and who I was lucky enough too meet at INSTR 2004, the 2nd International Symposium on Transportation Network Reliability.

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Reliability and vulnerability versus costs and benefits

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Revised on: 2015-09-09

Issues of reliability and vulnerability are mormally not considered a matter of evaluation in traditional cost-benefit analyses. Consequently, traditional cost-benefit analyses are lacking decision variables that may be important. This paper looks beyond the abstract science of vulnerability assessments, and discusses some of the factual influences and network attributes that contribute to the vulnerability of transport networks. The influences of the individual attributes are then examined as a measure of the vulnerability of a transport network. Although reliability can be defined by absolute numbers, vulnerability, by its very nature can not. The paper further outlines a framework for developing a methodology that to incorporate reliability and vulnerability as parameters for decision-support in a cost-benefit analysis. In doing so, this paper seeks to establish a link between the terms reliability/vulnerability and cost/benefit and seeks to describe reliability and vulnerability in terms of cost and benefit. Cost-benefit evaluations are part of many decision making processes, and it is argued that vulnerability assessments likewise should play an important role as input to these processes.

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