Jan Husdal

Will Climate Change have an impact on transportation?

Many studies have already examined the potential impacts of climate change on broad sectors of the economy, such as agriculture and forestry, but only a handful have studied the impacts on transportation.

Transportation professionals should look into the challenges posed by climate change and incorporate current scientific knowledge into the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of transportation systems. Every mode of transportation will be affected as climate change poses new and often unfamiliar challenges to infrastructure providers.

Special Report 290: Potential Impacts of Climate Change on U.S. Transportation is the report from a study conducted by a committee of experts under the auspices of the Transportation Research Board and the Division on Earth and Life Studies of the National Research Council. It makes the case that focusing on the problem now should help avoid costly future investments and disruptions to operations.The primary focus of this study is on the consequences of climate change for U.S. transportation infrastructure and operations. However, after reading it I have to admit that many of the conclusion are just as applicable anywhere else in the world.

Summary report (pdf)
Full report (pdf)

Oslo airport shut-down...lessons learned?

Two days ago, Norway's major airport, Oslo Gardermoen (OSL) practically shut down due to weather conditions, so-called "freezing fog". The usual rate of 32 take-offs per hour was reduced to 10 (at the best) and tens of thousands of Christmas travelers were stranded for up to more than 24 hours on what is probably THE busiest day of the year. What acerbated things was how the airlines dealt with the situation: No information to waiting passengers, no food coupons or refreshments, endless lines in front of ticket counters...I know, the airlines may not be required to give you food coupons or refreshments for no reason, and many stick to the legal requirements for fear of overrunning costs, but they seem to forget the golden rule in business: If you take care of your customers, your customers will take care of you (your bottom line), and you cannot build customer loyalty with negligent service, and it is during crises like this a airline can really show how service-minded it actually is. Especially in the case of SAS, which recently launched a massive ad campaign around the theme "we are re-launching service"...well, so much for the ad campaign...

The Swedish Road Network - Vulnerable or not?

The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden KTH is in the finishing stages of a research project aiming to develop the methodology for vulnerability analysis of road networks that can bes used for decision-making concerning investment and maintenance measures.

How New Zealand develops resilient organisations

As our infrastructure and organisations become ever more networked and interdependent there is a growing need to focus on managing overall system risk. In particular, there is a need to focus not only on the vulnerability of our systems to failure, but also on our ability to manage and minimise the impact of any failures. New Zealand has realised this and is currently halfway through a six year research project designed to assist organisations in recovering their economic competitiveness after hazard events.

There is a load of information the Resilient organisations project home page: research reports, new findings, publications, events and conferences. Maybe not so supply chain or transport-related, but well worth a look. Resilience is applicable anywhere. Their newest research report is just out:

Resilience Management: A framework for assessing and improving the resilience of Organisations.

Read it here. 

Is Your Supply Chain Vulnerable?

Recently I came across a report on Supply Chain Vulnerability published as early as 2002 by the Cranfield University School of Management on behalf of the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Home Office.

The key findings from this research report into supply chain vulnerabilities are:
• Supply chain vulnerability is an important business issue.
• Little research has been undertaken into supply chain vulnerabilities.
• Awareness of the subject is poor.
• There is a need for a methodology for managing supply chain vulnerability.

Cost-Benefit Analysis - an essay about valuation problems

This paper introduces vulnerability as an important parameter for decision-support in costbenefit analyses for transportation projects, by seeking to establish a link between the terms reliability and vulnerability vis-à-vis costs and benefits. The paper contends that a reliable transportation network represents a net benefit to society, and conversely, that a vulnerable network represents a net cost to society. Vulnerability costs or disruption costs are related to both location on and usage of the transportation network, and methods to explore these costs are suggested.

Transport Network Vulnerability - which metrics should we use?

Paper presented at the NECTAR Cluster 1 Seminar, Molde, Norway, 12-13 May 2006.

Transport network vulnerability is a relatively new field of research and to this date no commonly agreed definition or quantifiable expression of what vulnerability is exists within the academic community.

The follwing paper presents a review of road network vulnerability, seeking to synthesize different terminologies and metrics, among which: reliability, vulnerability, resilience, flexibility, robustness, and adaptive capacity.

The vulnerability of road networks in a cost-benefit perspective

Paper presented at TRB2005, the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2005, Washington DC, USA, 9-13 January 2005.

A reliable transportation network represents a net benefit to society, and conversely, a vulnerable network represents a net cost to society. Hence, vulnerability ought to be an important parameter for decision-support in cost-benefit analyses, by seeking to establish a link between the terms reliability and vulnerability vis-à-vis costs and benefits. A multi-criteria analysis approach is suggested as an appropriate methodology for analyzing the monetary and non-monetary effects of vulnerability.

Looking beyond the science of vulnerability assessments, this paper discusses some of the network attributes that influence the vulnerability of transportation networks, influences that can be described as structure-related, nature-related or traffic-related attributes. The influences of the individual attributes are then examined as possible candidates for measuring of the vulnerability of the transportation network.

Reliability and vulnerability versus costs and benefits

Paper presented at ETC2004, the European Transport Conference 2004, Strasbourg, France, 4-6 October 2004.

Taking up the invitation of Berdica to bring out and recognise the vulnerability in the road transport system as a meeting point for all the different strands of transport reliability research and other issues, the focal point of this paper is to look at a road network from a reliability and vulnerability perspective and to link this analysis to cost-benefit decisions.

Looking beyond the science of vulnerability assessments, this paper discusses some of the network attributes that influence the vulnerability of transport networks, influences that can be described as structure-related, nature-related or traffic-related attributes. The paper introduces vulnerability as a parameter for decision-support in cost-benefit analyses, by seeking to establish a link between the terms reliability and vulnerability vis-a-vis costs and benefits.

Keywords: reliability, vulnerability, cost-benefit

Book review: The Network Reliability of Transport

I guess you would ever have to attended the conference yourself or be a researcher to actually go and buy The Network Reliability of Transport by Michael G. H. Bell (Editor), Yasunori Iida (Editor). It's definitely worth a read, as it presents a cross-section of the current state of the art knowledge within the field. These are the people you would want to cooperate with in your own research and reading their articles is one way to get to know them.