RISK ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT OF CRITICAL HIGHWAY INFRASTRUCTURE: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report synthesizes for executives the contents of a more comprehensive companion document on this subject. The objective is to develop methodologies for risk analysis of critical highway infrastructures at two levels: (1) system level and (2) asset level. The system-level analysis conducts risk assessment from a statewide perspective. The goal is to evaluate and prioritize infrastructures from a considerable inventory of assets. These attributes correspond to national, regional, and local impact of an infrastructure's damage or complete loss. In addition, the levels of impact are utilized in prioritization: infrastructures that have potential national and regional impact are considered more important than those with local impact. Further prioritization is conducted based on the asset's need for risk management actions. The asset's current state or condition, in terms of resilience, robustness, redundancy, and security against willful threat is used to evaluate the need for management actions. A set of criteria and corresponding metrics is identified, and supporting data are gathered using information from the Federal Highway Administration National Bridge Inventory and other sources. Once the most critical infrastructures are prioritized, an in-depth risk assessment of particular assets is performed to determine specific risks and vulnerabilities. Eight case studies on selected Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) sites are conducted. The details of these case studies are not presented in this report. Instead, general findings are presented that can serve as a guideline for policy implementation to other similar assets. Since a small number of case studies are performed by the project team, another important goal of this study is for effective knowledge transfer of the methodology to VDOT, in order to facilitate risk assessment of other critical infrastructures. For this purpose, a prototype computer tool is developed, which is designed to guide facility managers in risk assessment and management. The case studies and documentation of the computer tool are provided in supplemental documents available by request from the authors.