National importance of survival of transportation systems during and after all natural disasters

NATIONAL IMPORTANCE OF SURVIVAL OF TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS

A transportation system can be defined as the combination of elements and their interactions, which produce the demand for travel within a given area and the supply of transportation services to satisfy this demand.

A transportation system is a system for moving persons or goods consisting of three components

1. The vehicle
2. The guideway and
3. The operations plan
   

The different modes of transport are air, water, and land transport, which includes Rails or railways, road and off-road transport.  

• Disasters are extraordinary situations that require significant logistical deployment to transport equipment and humanitarian goods in order to help and provide relief to victims.
• An efficient response helps to reduce the social, economic and environmental impacts 
• Transportation is often considered a critical infrastructure since a disruption in one of its components can have a significant impact on the economic and social well-being of a region of a nation.
• An effective way to assess how critical infrastructure like transportation system would affect the economy is to consider the impacts its removal would have on the flows and activities it serves.
• Transportation systems have a direct impact on:
• Mobility
• Infrastructure and economic interdependency
• Centralization and concentration of distribution
• Urbanization

• If the disruption is at a wide scale, road networks are vulnerable to disruptions because of their mesh structure
  

• Regardless of type of disasters, it is essential to keep the transportation systems in a working status as transportation is required for:
• Site reconnaissance
• Search and rescue operations
• Resettlement and rehabilitation of affected people
• Providing camps, food and sanitation places for affected people
• Transportation systems include  transport by road, water and air
• Destructive natural disasters such as hurricanes or other extreme weather events challenge many industries, especially the public transit industry.
  
• After a disaster occurs, transportation networks act as key lifelines enabling access to the affected communities
  
• From an economic standpoint, the impacts of disasters are dependent on three factors; 
• the nature and level of incidence of disasters
• the level of exposure of populations and infrastructures, and
• the level of vulnerability of populations and infrastructures. 
• The impact of disasters on transportation systems 
• Logistics networks highlight the important role of road transport in ensuring that affected areas become resilient to natural disasters in the future.
• The resilience of a transport system is its capability to resume operations at a level similar to that before a disruption occurred.
• Resilience is highly influenced by the network structure, particularly its redundancy.
• Resilience is also related to the nature of the disaster 
• Transport infrastructure is at risk of direct damage from extreme climate events.
• Cox's proportional hazards regression model is used to determine the rate of recovery and cumulative probability that recovery occurs for transport infrastructure across an area.
• Data for post-disaster reconstruction projects over a period are used to analyse recovery rates for a geographic region, natural disaster type and post-disaster transport infrastructure reconstruction cost.
• Bootstrap resampling technique has been used to demonstrate that the model (Cox's proportional hazards regression model) is robust and reasonable.
• Some companies are reactive and agile during a disruption or disaster – using a transportation management system (TMS) to reroute freight in transit and schedule alternative modes for inventory on hand.
• Road transport is potentially affected by flooding, storms and rising sea levels due to climate change.
  

The continued survival of transportation systems is essential to the very existence of mankind as it plays a major role of transporting both human beings as well as equipment required for survival.

The natural disasters considered are:

• Cyclones
• Natural disasters like cyclones can have disastrous consequences on transportation systems since they:
• cover wide areas
• move slowly and
• are associated with high winds and rainfalls

• Earthquakes
• Tectonic activity is the source of major geophysical disasters like Earthquakes.
• They are difficult to predict and are focused on areas in the vicinity to boundaries of tectonic plates. 
• Earthquakes cause the most extensive damage to the transport infrastructure as it has significant impacts on supply chains
• Although areas of high earthquake occurrence are readily identified, the specific location and scale of an event remain a probability that is often difficult to conceptualize in the planning of transport infrastructure.
• Trucks deliver essential relief goods and much needed construction equipment and resources, while also removing debris from affected cities and towns. 
• The flexibility of trucks, with the facility to use secondary and alternative roads, has allowed relief operations to continue.
• Floods 
• During such events, regional transportation systems are usually shut down and road transportation can be severely impaired. 
• Due to flooding and power outages, it might take several days before the entire system is brought back to normal operating conditions.
• Natural disasters like cyclones will continue to occur with uncertainty in scale and frequency
  

Man-made disasters like 

• Sabotage
• Sabotage refers to a deliberate attempt to weakening an organisation (in this case a transportation system) through subversion, obstruction, disruption or destruction.
• There have been several cases in the past where lines of transportation (especially road networks) were compromised to held the government to ransom
• Sabotage operations also involve setting one or all components of the transportation system on fire
• There have been several acts of sabotage of road transportation networks in the past by throwing hand grenades on roads
  
• Terrorism
• Conflicts such as wars and civil unrest often result in the damaging of infrastructure with transportation commonly a voluntary or involuntary target. 
• Due to the importance of trade and the structure of road transportation networks, bottlenecks (strategic passages) are subject to the risk of partial or complete closure. 
• Terrorism has been a disruptive issue that came at the forefront over the last two decades. 
• The disruptions caused by terrorism can be considered a disaster because of their scale and scope. 
• The response towards terrorism often results in the closing of the road transport system. 
• Often, road transport lines are forced to pass through constrained areas, choke-points along the heavily used routes, which make the interception of vehicles feasible within a delimited area.

In-spite of  the disruption caused to transportation systems during and after disasters (natural and man-made), it is of utmost importance to keep the transportation system alive. Thus, the survival of transportation systems during and after all disasters is discussed below:

Disasters Risk Management, which could reduce disruptions is discussed below:

• Risk Assessment involves measuring the likelihood of an event and its potential impacts over a defined time frame and a specific area should provide a prioritization of risks.
• Preparedness should be considered in terms of potential responses involving
• warehousing and
• positioning of relief material, equipment along with 
• training the labour force in emergency situations.
• Mitigation involves the immediate reaction to the event including
• shutting down of transport systems
• the evacuation of populations and
• the mobilization of first response resources, namely distributing emergency relief (food, medical supplies). 
• The goal being control and attenuation of the disruptions caused by the disaster.
• Response operations commence after mitigation and involve bringing back transportation system capacity with existing infrastructure. 
• The goal is to maintain operational as many elements of the transport system as possible. 
• Recovery concerns all the steps necessary to recover the transport capacity that was lost during the disaster. 
• It involves repairs, restarting services that were discontinued as well as investments in new and improved infrastructures, modes, and terminals.
• The goal is to bring back the capacity and level of service to pre-disaster conditions. With the lessons learned from the disaster, more resilient infrastructure and network. 

The reconstruction time of transportation infrastructure tends to be slower than other infrastructure.

Road and rail infrastructure can take several months

Highway and rail services can run at a lower capacity and on alternative routes.

Recovery is contingent upon the availability of capital, equipment, and managerial expertise.

Recovery operations opens the door for public-private partnerships since the private sector has a vast array of resources, including transportation and warehousing assets, that can be brought in during a disaster. 

Achieving a level of resilience implies a combination of redundancy or flexibility. Redundancy involves a level of duplication of assets while Flexibility concerns the capacity to find alternatives such as new routes.

Disruptions, complete or partial, always result in much more transport demand than supply.  

The mobility of passengers or freight should shift towards modes that have a higher capacity and resiliency