Building effective and resilient emergency response networks (ERN) is essential for the rapid recovery of interrupted infrastructure during extreme events. Aiming at providing a critical benchmarking and implementable strategies for improving ERN resilience, this study proposes a novel framework to systematically quantify ERN resilience through an enhanced Meta-Network Analysis (MNA)-based approach. This framework firstly applies the MNA approach to conceptualize the complex emergency response as three-stage "Agent-Task-Resource-Knowledge" (A-T-R-K) meta-networks, representing
JME-Accepted VersionLi, April 12, 2022 connections among stakeholders, response tasks, emergency resources, and professional knowledge. Then, suitable meta-network measures (i.e., natural connectivity, average speed, overall task completion, and the integrative metric of task resource/knowledge needs and task resource/knowledge waste) generated accordingly are used to quantify ERN resilience capacities-robustness, rapidity, resourcefulness, and redundancy. This proposed framework is validated through a case study of the emergency response to the Manchester Arena attack in the United Kingdom. The dynamic change of ERN resilience over time as well as possible causes within the case scenario are analyzed. Additionally, its resilience improvement strategies and the advantages of the MNA approach are discussed. Overall, this enhanced MNA-based framework promotes an understanding of emergency response performance through systematically conceptualizing the complex ERN structure and dynamically quantifying ERN resilience capacities. Lessons learned from historical disasters provide decision-makers with implementable support to advance their collaboration and knowledge sharing, and optimize resources and tasks for enhancing resilience in future infrastructure operation and emergency response activities.