BridgeR—a Regional Seismic Hazard Assessment Tool for Transportation Networks & its Application to Freight Loss Assessment

The first objective of this project is to develop a geographic information systems (GIS)-based database that will provide various data and meta-data for all of California’s 20,000+ highway bridges. This database alone will allow experts from multiple domains—e.g., bridge engineers, city and traffic planners, and first responders—to carry out tasks such as emergency traffic planning, load rating of older bridges, life-cycle cost-benefit assessment of a given bridge. The second objective is to devise a computational toolbox that will interact with the database to produce a regional seismic risk/loss assessment of California’s transportation network. The said toolbox (or “app”) will produce quantitative results in the form of site- and structure-specific seismic bridge fragilities, which will enable pre-event regional economic loss studies, as well as rapid post-event assessment reports. The third objective is to produce a third tool that will enable financial loss studies on freight traffic due to large scenario-based earthquakes. The fourth and final objective of this project is to demonstrate the utility of the aforementioned databases and analysis tools by applying it to the freight traffic to and from the Port of Los Angeles in the aftermath of a large Southern California scenario- based earthquake. The seismic fragilities and freight data will be used to explore how much a given pre-event mitigation effort will minimize financial losses—in the form of, for example, recommended priority retrofits and maintenance runs, construction of redundant routes, and temporary routing plans until full recovery. It is important to note that the aforementioned database and analysis tools will be expandable to a plethora of other applications related to the utility, functionality, and natural and anthropogenic hazard exposure of California’s transportation network.

Language

  • English

Project

  • Status: Active
  • Funding: $92548
  • Sponsor Organizations:

    METRANS Transportation Center

    University of Southern California
    Los Angeles, CA  United States  90089-0626

    Pacific Southwest Region University Transportation Center

    University of Southern California
    Los Angeles, CA  United States  90089

    Department of Transportation

    1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
    Washington, DC  United States  20590

    University of California, Los Angeles

    Los Angeles, California  United States  90095

    Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

    University Transportation Centers Program
    Department of Transportation
    Washington, DC  United States  20590
  • Project Managers:

    Brinkerhoff, Cort

  • Principal Investigators:

    Taciroglu, Ertugrul

  • Start Date: 20191101
  • Expected Completion Date: 20221231
  • Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01652803
  • Record Type: Research project
  • Source Agency: National Center for Metropolitan Transportation Research
  • Files: UTC, RIP
  • Created Date: Dec 2 2017 6:32AM