Synthesis of Information Related to Transit Practices. Topic SA-61. State of Practice for Transit Recovery in the Aftermath of Severe Weather Events

An increase in severe weather across the United States has led to increased impacts on transportation networks across the country. As a result, transit agencies need to have plans in place to appropriately react to and recovery from the impacts of natural disasters, such as: hurricanes, floods, winter storms, wildfires, and other severe weather events. This synthesis looks to examine how often transit agencies have recovery plans, and if the existence of a recovery plan impacts the “down period” of full service. While many agencies across the United States have both rail and bus operations, this synthesis is focused on bus operations only, as rail operations can be supplemented with buses in the interim. While the expectation is that transit agencies are the most likely to have recovery plans to call upon in the event of severe weather impacting operations, as a result of their increased resources, smaller urban or rural transit agencies feel the impact of these disaster events more severely when compared to the larger agencies. This is a result of the greater resources available to transit agencies as they are more likely to be able to afford personnel such as emergency managers who write these dedicated recovery plans, where smaller agencies are often ran by only a handful of individuals where someone like a General Manager or Operations Manager may or may not have undergone emergency management training and does nott have the availability to write a recovery plan. The objective of this synthesis is to document the current state of practice around transit recovery plans (plans that direct transit agency actions as they transition from response to recovery), identify if the existence of these plans reduces operational downtime and look at key instances of short, and long-term recovery.  

• Record URL:
  http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=5552
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Contract to a Performing Organization has not yet been awarded.

Language

• English

Project

• Funding: $55000
• Contract Numbers:

  Project J-07, Topic SA-61

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC    20001

  Federal Transit Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Schoby, Jamaal

• Start Date: 20240619
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Contingency planning; Continuity of operations; Disaster resilience; Disasters and emergency operations; Public transit; Weather conditions
• Subject Areas: Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Security and Emergencies;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01901382
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project J-07, Topic SA-61
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: Dec 5 2023 9:39AM