Exploratory analysis of the pathway towards operationalizing resilience in transportation infrastructure management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the pathway toward operationalizing resilience in management of transportation infrastructure. Design/methodology/approach – The research approach includes a comprehensive survey of the State Transportation Agencies (STA) in the USA. The information collected from the survey is analyzed using statistical analysis to explore the determinants of operationalizing resilience in transportation infrastructure management. Findings – The results reveal that the current practices of STA need improvement in terms of pre-disaster vulnerability and exposure analysis as well as pre-disaster retrofit and betterment efforts. A pathway toward this end is identified with the major components being: funding availability, integration of efforts across different units, use of risk and vulnerability assessment approaches, and use of resilience indices. Practical/implications – The pathway, along with the other findings, enhances the understanding of the status quo, drivers, and barriers toward operationalizing resilience in transportation infrastructure management. Such an understanding is critical for infrastructure agencies to better adapt and enhance the resilience of their assets in response to various stressors such as the impacts of climate change as well as natural disasters. Originality/value – The study presented in this paper is the first of its kind to identify the pathway toward operationalizing resilience in transportation infrastructure management.