Transportation, Lifelines and Reliability

This paper discusses the importance of reliability in a transportation system and the role of the transportation system as a lifeline, and describes a new approach for analysing a transportation system and assessing its reliability, allowing for degradation of links in the network. Application of the model to the problem of ensuring more reliable transport services (needed by the just-in-time philosophy), and providing lifelines for the movement of people and goods after disasters, is discussed.