Adaptable Resilience Assessment Framework to Evaluate an Impact of a Disruptive Event on Freight Operations

Abstract

Freight transportation is a major economic backbone of the United States. Ports, as one of the primary components of freight transportation, have experienced significant growth and increased capacity during the past two decades. This study develops an adaptable resilience assessment framework that evaluates the impact of a disruptive event on transportation operations. The framework identifies dynamic performance levels over an extended period of an event including five distinct phases of responses: staging, reduction, peak, restoration, and overloading. This study applies the framework to the Port of Houston, Texas, during a major hurricane event, Harvey, and two holiday events in 2017. The framework evaluates proactive and reactive responses of port truck activities during the disruptions and provides a comprehensive assessment of resilience and adaptability in port truck operations. This study showed that a short proactive response before a disaster results in a long recovery period with over 250% increases in volume between a port terminal (Barbours Cut) to its regional destinations. Trucks serving local facilities show stable and shorter response phases, while regional operations maintain a prolonged staging or overloading phases to handle the excess demands especially for significant multi-day disruptive events. The economic analysis shows that the increased economic gain during a proactive or reactive stage could substantially alleviate the losses resulting from impaired port operations. Evaluating response systems and resilience of port truck activities during severe weather events represents the first step for designing plans that support a fast system recovery that minimizes the economic, social, and human impacts.