A Data-Driven Framework to Evaluate the Indirect Economic Impacts of Transportation Infrastructure Disruptions

Abstract

Transportation systems are critical to the sustainable development and economic vitality of cities. However, they are vulnerable to disruptions that can result from natural and man-made disasters as well as maintenance activities that may require temporary closure of road segments. Previous research indicated that transportation disruptions can cause not only significant direct economic losses, but also substantial indirect economic impacts, which are difficult to analyze and quantify. This study introduces a new analytical framework for estimating the indirect economic impacts that are caused by various direct effects of transportation disruptions, including building and content losses, business interruptions, freight flow perturbations, and passenger flow perturbations. In the proposed framework, information on transportation disruptions generated by explicit transportation network models is incorporated into economic models through a series of well-built model linkages. Then, a static multi-regional Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model is integrated to quantify the indirect economic impacts. In addition, the critical data that is required to achieve a comprehensive and accurate estimation of the indirect economic impacts is identified. A case study of a hypothetical earthquake scenario in the Greater Los Angeles Area was conducted. The indirect economic impacts of transportation disruptions caused by earthquake-induced bridge damages were estimated and analyzed. Simulation results indicated that millions of dollars could be lost in this case due to road transportation network disruptions, and the geographical distribution of those losses could be quantified.

Keywords: indirect economic impacts, transportation disruption, Computable General Equilibrium model, model linkages