A Preliminary Longitudinal Study of Lifeline Seismic Improvement Programs

A 1999 study published by the American Society of Civil Engineers Technical Council on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering entitled “Overcoming Barriers: Lifeline Seismic Improvement Programs” developed and analyzed six utility service providers and one major freeway management agency to understand their approach to seismic improvement. The study described seismic improvement policies and techniques, as well as the legal, historical, and organizational context that either facilitated or hindered seismic improvement. Since the original study, there have been significant changes in the scale and nature of these risk reduction efforts. This paper describes preliminary results of a follow-up study using the same data collection strategy to explore longitudinal trends of lifeline seismic improvement. The goal of the current study is to get an idea of the relative success of previously identified seismic improvement programs and study recommendations. More importantly, this study seeks to gain insight regarding whether these service providers have increased or decreased their seismic improvement efforts, how this has occurred and why.