The transportation community is focused on a new challenge facing the nation’s transportation systems. That challenge has become known as “resilience”: the nexus of preparing for the impacts of climate change (e.g., sea level rise, severe/extreme weather events) while responding to the catalog of system vulnerabilities and emergencies. Transportation agencies and others have slowly been developing a new appreciation for the challenges inherent in reconciling the similarities and distinctions among four inter-related topics:
- Critical Infrastructure
- System Risk Management
- Protection
- All Hazards Response
The development of a new strategy based on resilience includes a much broader range of options to help manage risks and recover from system disruptions. In this new paradigm, resilience does not replace the four concepts, but offers an overarching strategy that includes system risk management, protection, and preparedness as complementary strategies to prevent attacks and ward off threats, and adaptation, recovery, and other post-disruption strategies to restore normal transportation services. At the same time, transportation resilience can effectively support community resilience when transportation organizations plan for and accommodate unforeseen financial and economic conditions affecting system sustainability and regional economic conditions. System resiliency is ultimately a matter of context and connectedness and, much like safety, affects every major business function within a transportation agency including planning, project delivery, operations, and business management.
The objectives of this project were to develop (1) a primer and (2) a series of briefings for state DOT CEOs and senior executives on transportation resilience.
