Building Resilience into Freight Transportation Systems

Abstract

The management of transportation systems for resilience has received significant attention in recent years. Resilience planning concerns the actions of an organization that reduce the consequences of a disruption to the system the organization manages. Little exploration has been made into the connections between resilience planning and the actions of a state department of transportation (DOT) that contribute to resilience of a freight transportation system. Conclusions are presented from collaborative research between the Washington State DOT Freight Systems Division (WSDOT FSD) and researchers at the University of Washington. Activities of the WSDOT FSD that contribute to resilience are identified, and one such activity undertaken by WSDOT to improve communication with system users is described. This and other activities can be undertaken by other DOTs that want to improve the resilience of their freight transportation systems at relatively low cost.

Examining the Differential Responses of Shippers and Motor Carriers to Travel Time Variability

“…Significant Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP) resources have been dedicated to examining strategies to improve travel time reliability which will also increase system resilience. Similarly, those interested in travel time variability should recognize that strategies being implemented, such as the freight communication system developed by the Washington Department of Transportation (Ta, Goodchild, & Ivanov, 2010), will also improve travel time reliability.…”

“…More recent research by Ta, Goodchild, and Pitera (2009) has focused more on the operational aspects, identifying the interactions between managing organizations (namely State Departments of Transportation), the infrastructure, and users. Ta, Goodchild, and Ivanov (2010) extend this research, presenting a specific strategy that can be implemented to improve transportation system resilience. They describe a strategy to disseminate information to increase situational awareness, ultimately reducing travel time variability by providing improved information about current and potential disruptions within a transportation system.…”