Vulnerability Assessment for Cascading Failure in Highway Traffic System

Vulnerability assessment of highway traffic system is a growing problem to transportation agencies. In the wake of widespread cascading failure caused by incidents including vehicle crashes and severe weather, significant steps are needed to improve security level of highway system. This paper identifies the importance priority of every vulnerability factor using Dematel method, and then presents a method for the vulnerability assessment of highway transportation system under the phenomenon of system cascading failure. Different situations including delays, travel time and travel costs in travel are considered, and UE model is used for traffic allocation and reallocation. This methodology is applied to Heilongjiang highway network and the results demonstrate the efficiency of the process to determine vulnerable sections in highway networks.